Google's Office Suite Gets Presentation App

Google chief, Eric Schmidt unveiled a new add-on for Google spreadsheet, at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco designed to help users make presentations with its office suite.

Schmidt called it the 'killer app', although he avoided comparisons to Microsoft PowerPoint. Google has not released more details about the presentation software, but representatives revealed that users would be able to store documents online and let anyone with a free Google account view the slides, spreadsheets or documents online.

The basic difference between Microsoft's Powerpoint and Google's presentational software is that users are required to download Microsoft's software, where as people may use Google's software over the Internet by simply logging in through a Web browser, without having to download any software. However, Google will reportedly give away two versions of the presentation software this summer, and it will sell a Premier version with extra storage for $50 (Euro36.90) per year.

The official Google blog also shed more light on the new add on, stating that the presentations package will use technology from a Google-acquired San Franciscan/Australian startup called Tonic. It said, "It just made sense to add presentations to the mix; after all, when you create slides, you're almost always going to share them. Now students, writers, teachers, organizers, and, well, just about everyone who uses a computer can look forward to having real-time, web-based collaboration across even more common business document formats."

Google's free Office-like services, which will carry advertising at a later stage, have been seen as a threat to a business that produced nearly a third of Microsoft's revenues last year. However, Schmidt insisted that Google was not trying to steal Microsoft's customers with its own internet-based productivity tools. He also downplayed the comparisons by saying it does not have all the functionality nor is it intended to have all functionality of Microsoft Office. He said it seems to be a better fit to how people use the Web.