Not about Adobe AIR, or Google Docs. But Google Native client, an attempt, similar to them ol’ Java applets that just got released and I’m sure the best brains at Microsoft are dissecting line by line to see how it works (right? right?) . Still in testing, but coming up fast on the horizon, here comes another challenge for Microsoft’s domination of the client desktop market.

Traditionally, Microsoft Office’s strength has not only been the fact that its very deep in terms of features and abilities, but also the fact that you can double click and open a 4MB word or excel file in a matter of seconds, and open something like change tracking without everything crashing. (and there are plenty universities, students, financial professionals, you name it, who have that requirement) . 

Google Docs as yet cannot match this, and one of the reasons I dont take it seriously for my daily work is the same, I have way too many complex excel sheets, and word documents with fine formatting that Google Docs cannot match or open yet. I like the fact that its web based, but thats secondary to me compared to ease of opening, editing saving files. I have a laptop, I backup alot, and I dont need the ‘cloud’ so much (yet!). Adobe AIR, while promising, is still not built to utilize the client desktop’s resources, (like Google wants to) has only as yet released some small (but very useful) apps.

So here comes Google Native Client, aka another approach to browser-launched client side computing , Read the rest of this entry »

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