ADDING IT UP
Top story on Techmeme indicates that Google is getting ready to augment it's online Office suite soon, as this TechCrunch story reports:
"Google’s long awaited Powerpoint clone could be days away from launching, according to a report at The Inquirer.
The service is said to be called “Presently” and is based in part on code from Zenter and Tonic Systems, two companies Google acquired earlier this year."
Separately, TechCrunch notes in a different post:
"Google will present something at TechCrunch40 next week. Like the AOL and Yahoo product launches, it will not be eligible for the $50,000 top prize awarded to the best new startup product.
But they will present it in front of the main crowd, and audience comments and questions will be part of the show."
Putting two and two together, one could surmise that Google will "present" it's Powerpoint application at Michael Arrington and Jason Calacanis's new conference next week.
For Google, it'd be the completion of the basic online Office suite
(online word processor, spreadsheet, presentations and email). Only thing missing would be a more robust contact manager ala Microsoft Outlook.
If an online presentation app is unveiled next week, that'd be a relatively quick Google-scale productization. Remember that Google acquired Zenter and Tonic Systems just earlier this summer, both focused on online presentations.
It's only fitting since TechCrunch40 is about innovative, new startups. And Zenter was exactly that as a YCombinator backed, seed-stage startup, not so long ago.
So in some ways, it'd be like Zenter and Tonic re-debuting as start-ups, this time from the belly of the Google beast.
Maybe we should call it TechCrunch42, assuming of course that my two plus two math above adds up.
I have a hard time believing they would actually call it Presently, after killing off the Writely brand ... unless Writely gets a revival, too :-)
Posted by: Zoli Erdos | Friday, September 14, 2007 at 10:42 PM