Image by adria.richards via Flickr
Many reported today that Microsoft Office documents can now be synched to Google docs, which provides all the advantages of Google Docs to Office users. The Official Google Enterprise Blog reported it as follows:
"For those of you who have not made the full move to Google Docs and are still using Microsoft Office, Google has something great to offer. With Cloud Connect, people can continue to use the familiar Office interface, while reaping many of the benefits of web-based collaboration that Google Docs users already enjoy.
Users of Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 can sync their Office documents to the Google cloud, without ever leaving Office. Once synced, documents are backed-up, given a unique URL, and can be accessed from anywhere (including mobile devices) at any time through Google Docs. And because the files are stored in the cloud, people always have access to the current version."
What caught my attention is what I bolded above. With cloud-based applications the interface is the only thing important to the user. Effectively in this new service from Google, Office is nothing more than an interface. Yes--there is obviously functionality built into the Office app running on your PC, but that is really just a decision on where you want the functionality. This functionality could just as easily have been resident in the cloud on Google apps or the Office cloud product.
Fred Wilson, VC extraordinaire, had a related post today entitled Mobile First Web Second. He said:
"Using the mobile web as a constraint to think about web design is growing in popularity...When users spend more time accessing your service over a mobile device, they are going to get used to that UI/UX. When you ask them to navigate a substantially busier and more complex UI/UX when they log onto the web, you are likely to keep them on the mobile app and off the web app."
Fred's point is that customers are becoming accustomed to the simple interfaces of mobile apps and will not tolerate the convoluted interfaces of many websites. This has always been true, but it is now more important as the evolving technologies of mobile apps and cloud computing dictate a simpler more elegant interface. Previous thoughts on simplicity and elegance are here.
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