Google Docs Goes Down for 45 Minutes

Google is desperately trying to disrupt the model of desktop word processing that Microsoft has been the king of for the past twenty or so years. They’ve done this by offering free, web based products that basically do all the things Microsoft Office suite does (spread sheets, word processing, and presentations). Their biggest problem to date has been the fact that it’s hard to use web based services like Google Docs for any important data because you run the risk of loosing access to those files when your internet connection goes down, or worse, if Google Docs itself becomes unavailable.

Google has somewhat circumvented this with Google Gears, their solution that allows you to sync data created offline when you do have access to the internet again. But what about when you’ve got a 100 page report saved on Google Docs but you can’t access it because the service crashes? This is especially a concern in developing countries where electrical outages and connection dropouts are frequent.

Before businesses and professionals adopt it as a real solution, it has to offer more stability in these scenarios. From a technical standpoint, I’m not sure why Google hasn’t adopted a solution like Adobe Air that allows you to use web apps on the desktop in conjunction with their Gears solution. This would allow for the creation and maintenance of files on and offline that could be synced passively (with little user interaction).

If they aren’t careful, someone will beat them to it and applications like Adobe’s Acrobat.com and will steal a potential audience away.