Google's online office suite shows promise

Google is betting on a future with ubiquitous, affordable, wireless, high-speed Internet access. That may be smart in the long run, but last week that philosophy drove me straight back into the arms of Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007.

My technology choices generally come down to pragmatic rather than religious choices, and it was pragmatism that led me to embrace Google Docs last year. I like the fact that I can work simultaneously on multiple computers--indeed, even on mobile phones these days--and that multiple people can easily collaborate. My requirements for advanced formatting and formulas are low enough that I generally can put up with the shortcomings.
Here's what I don't like, though: for Google Docs, you need a network connection.

I just spent five days at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, Spain. Contrary to what one might hope for a show devoted to the latest in mobile communications, the wireless networking at the show generally ranged somewhere from crippled to crushed.

For reasons that baffle me, network giant Cisco Systems sponsored the show's Wi-Fi, with signage in the halls touting it and attendees receiving a flier explaining how to use it. I'd have thought that Cisco, a company with a brand to promote and protect, would have learned by now to steer clear of tech trade shows in which auditoriums filled with Net-enabled gadgets bring wireless networks to their knees.

I was eventually hobbled with a Office 2007 download dongle plugged into my computer's USB port, but that only works some of the time (it was too bulky to use the dongle and the other USB port at the same time, for example). And of course the data plan is expensive, I had to unplug it much of the time, and connecting to the network is slow.

Under these circumstances, was I going to rely on a word processor that needed a network connection? Not a chance.

Thus, it was back to Microsoft Word for me during the show.