Google offers more to tempt corporates

Google has added several new features to its Docs & Spreadsheets and Google Apps services to boost usability and encourage take-up of the tools. The search giant also updated Google Talk to facilitate easier group communications.

In an official blog posting, user experience designer Darren Delaye said Google Docs & Spreadsheets’ interface has been updated to include drag-and-drop folders for organising files and an area down the left side where people that the user is collaborating with can be listed.

There is also a new Suggest function that is designed to speed up file retrieval by predicting what the user is searching their folders for.

Google Apps, meanwhile, has been updated with mail migration capabilities designed to make it easier to copy corporate mail from an Imap server to Google Apps.

“Google likes the idea of search instead of folders but it has slightly given in to users over this,” explained Ovum analyst David Bradshaw. “And the enhanced [email] import facility is something it has to do if it is going to get companies to take it seriously and move over from Outlook.”

However, Bradshaw cautioned that Google Docs & Spreadsheets is still “immensely frustrating” and possibly suffering from a lack of investment.

In addition, Google Talk now includes a Group Chat button that enables users to invite several people into an IM chat. Bradshaw said the enhancement was “a logical step to making the communications end more usable in a corporate environment”.