After spending most of my summer in Liberia, I had the opportunity to visit many government institution, businesses and the University of Liberia.  Every where you go, people are getting on the internet.  Most government ministries have full internet access through the local service providers who compete for this business.  With the launching into service Liberia telephone company (LIBTELCO), all government ministries, educational institution and business can get a good Internet access solution from the local telephone company for the lowest cost amongst the service providers in Liberia.

Google docs is a free, web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and form application offered by google. Google docs is google’s “software as a service” version of an office suite. Google docs is similar to microsoft word, the settings are there you have to scroll around to find all of its’ features. Please note that google docs is not a clone of word, excel, powerpoint etc! The majority of document-sharing services require user fees, whereas google docs is free to gmail users and non-users. “google docs is not yet supplanting microsoft, but the fact that google docs is being picked up so quickly shows tremendous momentum, and that’s a huge threat to microsoft,” said melissa webster, the idc analyst who conducted the survey. The study’s main finding is that about 1 in 5 companies reported that google docs is “widely used” in their workplace, however possibly as a compliment to microsoft office. Even if google docs is pretty basic for now, i suspect it will be catching word pretty quickly: a year from now, i bet the list of shortcomings will be a lot shorter. Google docs is an incredible tool for nonprofits as it saves time, requires next to zero training and can save your company a bundle of money. One-fifth of respondents surveyed by market research firm idc said google docs is now widely used in their organization, compared with around six percent a little more than a year and a half ago. Google docs is much better when it comes to sharing and collaborating on documents in real time, while office offers a richer feature set. Google docs is google’s on-line competitor to microsoft office 2007. College students should take note that google docs is missing one feature you might have learned to love — an equation editor. Google docs is one of the most prominent web-based document programs on the internet. If google docs is going to scale across the web, it needs to encourage each user to upload and share as many docs as possible as a regular part of their workday. However, for the vast majority of users who perform regular basic functions using word, excel, powerpoint google docs is a great and increasingly attractive alternative. Enterprise use of google docs is growing, with and without the blessing of it departments. Webster says that google docs is appealing because it makes collaboration easy. Google docs is not the platform – google is the platform and google docs is the consumer of the platform. Accessibility to google docs is not limited to those who have created it but to everyone on the web, but you do have the option of restricting other access to documents that you do not want others to mess with. Google docs is becoming ever more popular in educational fields. Google docs is very good application so it is certainly going to be an asset to larger companies. Google docs is probably a nice example of what could be a running theme for your book: it’s free, accessible from anywhere, has decent functionality, and assumes that you don’t mind that your text sits on google’s servers rather than your personal computer–and all that entails in terms of privacy, etc.

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