It is no secret that without some type of document collaboration ability Google Wave™ is…well…useless, really. Moreover, given that 92% of all businesses use Micorsoft Office™ as their document productivity tool, being able to collaborate using your Microsoft Office™ files is also really important.
Let’s look at what is available for collaboration right now, a top 6 list say (I know there will be a lot left off this list, but this list is not the point of the post):
- BaseCamp ™ – Share files and project collaboration (not done in real-time) – Cloud Computing
- SharePoint™ – Share files and project collaboration (not done in real-time) – Local Hosted Server
- E-mail – Share files – Local Hosted Server
- Google Docs – Share files and project collaboration (not done in real-time) – Cloud Computing
- NetDocuments™ – Share files and project collaboration (not done in real-time) – Cloud Computing
- Google Wave™ - Real-time collaboration (promise of file sharing and project management). – Cloud Computing
The products above are all very good stand-alone products as they are, click the link above to find out more about what they offer. However, the point of that list is to show that nothing (including Google Wave™) offers a product that allows businesses to host a local server appliance, which allows users to collaborate in real-time with files they are sharing for a project…being managed collaboratively, also.
Google Wave™ comes the closest, having cracked the real-time collaboration nut, it now just needs a document suite that can be used with the product. Once they get the document suite (if they get the document suite) they should then seriously look at offering a local server solution. As cloud computing makes many businesses a little concerned….see this post for an example of what I mean.
But, we are ahead of ourselves. Google Wave™ needs a document suite!
To that end, it seems like Google™ is trying very hard to make that happen. Case in point:
- Google Groups Launches for Google Apps™ Enterprise Users (users they gave Google Wave invites too in September)
- Google Groups Launches for Google Wave™ (just one big link missing)
- Google Acquires EtherPad™ (a web-based real-time collaborative web processor)
- Google to Acquire DocVerse™ ( a web-based real-time collaborative sharing of Word, Excel, Powerpoint documents)
- Google to Acquire Yelp™ (Business database – great for an office contact app)
- Google to Acquire Trulia™ (A real-estate search engine, that I will assume will offer some serious photo capabilities , I’m stretching it here, but I’m sure it has some tie in that may not be readily evident)
What becomes very clear is that Google is working very hard to bring a document collaboration capability to Google Wave™. I certainly hope that they get there soon, as folks are really starting to lose interest in what is basically becoming a glorified chat program with a lot less users or connections you would have with a regular chat. Real-time document collaboration and robots and gadgets that enhance that capability is really where Google Wave has power and promise.
Just today, as I discussed collaborating on a book with a colleague, we choose not to use Google Wave, but rather send documents back and forth via e-mail. As it is better to be able to use a full text editor when dealing with a larger project then use the limited editing currently available in Google Wave™.
I, for one, hope that they are able to announce this either at, or prior too, Google I/O 10. I think this date (19-20 May 10) is extremely important to reinvigorate development of extensions for Google Wave™. Not to mention they could launch a whole series of workshops at I/O 10. Moreover, and most importantly 
, I will be in attendance and am hoping for big Google Wave™ news.
How have you used the current version of Google Wave to collaborate? Have you done any major collaboration projects with this version?
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