It’s surprisingly good actually. It isn’t as robust as Word the software, but its 95% of what you would need to use every day. It’s easily as good, if not better than Google Docs. It doesn’t export PDFs, but you can download a Word document. You can also have access to a slimmed down version of Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. And yes, you can share!

It appears this is only in beta and only available to those who have downloaded Office 2010 Beta–which is a shame. My guess is that a lot of people would want to jump on board. Microsoft should take a cue from Google and give limited betas to your friends.

One extra request: Allow exporting as a PDF.

The killer app: If you could use Outlook for free and it was similar to what comes with the enterprise Exchange server and Microsoft might actually be able to put up a fight with Google.

I happened to stumble onto the article after doing a search to see if it was already being offered and oddly enough the news was released today. I think that Microsoft actually has a great opportunity here for the exact reason I was searching to see if they offered it–Google Docs pretty much sucks.

Sure, Google Docs is getting better but their tools would be competitive with Microsoft Works circa 1997. The offerings are weak and the deliver isn’t much better. A document isn’t much more than writing an email in Gmail. There is one reason why I use Google Docs: sharing. If Microsoft incorporates that and programs like Word, Powerpoint and Excel respond as quickly as Google Docs then they might have a winner. I’m surprisingly excited about the prospects. Lets just hope that Microsoft delivers. And its free.

Because they get fat and lazy and drunk on their own success. There are a google of examples of companies out there that have fallen victim–actually there are whole industries. And see, this is why Google is so scary to so many. Because they keep creating and growing and beta testing and inventing.

Thomas Edison might have been the smartest man in history, either that or the most creative. Edison was smart because he hired super smart people who could continue to come up with brilliant ideas even if he couldn’t. The problem was that he was the cortex of his company. Google on the other hand has built an ecosystem that has spawned other ecosystems. Perhaps there is a lot of bloat in there, but there is also a lot of genius.

Here is why Google is so scary:

1. They analyze everything. Sure, analyse isn’t always perfect, however it is better than going from the gut more often than not.

2. Google hires the smartest because quality counts. If you constantly deliver the highest quality than you are going to be tough to beat. Google is held to a higher standard which sounds bad but it’s actually good. How many companies do you know in which the world expects nothing but perfection? Not many. Google is the company where no one expects failure. Imagine if Microsoft had that reputation.

3. Google has no box. And because they work outside of most companies natural instincts of holding tight to one product and sucking it dry, Google keeps innovating.

4. And my favorite thing about Google: They take failure in stride and keep on moving. Not everything works. Sometimes you just need to keep taking pitches and hitting singles and doubles while expecting to strike out. Even the greatest hitter in baseball Ted Williams had 790 strikeouts, 2,654 hits and 521 home runs in his career. He struck out more than he hit home runs. But he never gave up and neither does Google. They keep on going after home runs. That is a character of that company that everyone should envy.

Think about your business. Where does it run now? Online. Google knows what you search, what you are thinking just by how you search and also loads of information about your personal trends. If you are searching for a certain car, certain porn, certain clothes, certain foods, certain directions than Google can put together quite an amazing profile. They could, and probably do, profile hundreds of millions of people. That profiling not only makes their search better but sets them up to be ready for any trend within a minutes notice.

The point? Besides the fact that Google is omnipresent? That companies aren’t collecting enough data. Not to just know everything about everyone, but to better serve their customers. The next generation of business isn’t going to be about simply providing a product. It’s going to be about tailoring your products or services for each individual. It will take a generation to catch up to Google in data alone.

Even when the lights are out. Even when  you think no one is watching, remember that Google is watching.

If you want to get hired. If you want to date. If you want to secure that deal. You might want to Google yourself. The bad news. There might not be much you can do about what you find–because Google never forgets.*

* Google might forget if you know how to fix it. If you don’t, you better find someone who does. If you don’t know who to ask. Keep on asking. An online life is a terrible thing to waste.

Moneyball proves much of what I’ve been hyping for a long time. That analytics could, should and will breathe life into many businesses that have never thought it would ever be of value to their industry. An example is the newspaper industry. Why can’t analytics go beyond the web and into the newsrooms? It should also be a part of the marketing and sales. It should be approached more in social media and a must in all online sales and marketing.

Instead of talking about every industry and how they could help, I’ll just cue up a few examples.

Newspapers have been deep into trying to solve all their issues. Every day someone is hypothesizing about how to save the industry, but one thing I never see discussed is analytics. Why aren’t reporters being valued based on readership and interactivity online? There are many tools for which to value journalism. ROI can be had with analytics. Heresy I know, but why is it that the values of employees in most industries have a monetary value to their company and journalists don’t? The same can be done for a wait staff. A bank teller. A car salesman. The mailman. The list doesn’t end. This isn’t about producing some scary Orwellian world. It’s about refining business and if ever there was a place and time to put value to all aspects of business 2009 is a great time to start.

Newspaper marketing and sales is another area that should be built on a foundation of analytics. If we can learn anything from Karl Rove it’s that you can know a lot about every neighborhood in every county of every state. You can find friends and weed out enemies. Newspapers need to do the same. When they want to find new subscribers a newspaper’s marketing team should do what a smart campaign manager would do and segment the population rather than carpet bombing large areas. Marketing is about the niches and talking directly to them not by creating one funny zinger and trying to advertise with that on radio, television and everywhere you can. Think about how a campaign manager would advertise to these individuals. One would advertise pro/anti abortion to certain people. They’d advertise environment to another. And advertise religion to another. And guns to another. And so on and so on. There could be 30 different campaigns. There could be 100. It’s not cheap, but it’s targeted and far more effective. Don’t let okay beat great. How do you do all this? Analytics.

Finally, social media should have an ROI. Sure, there are instances where you should just use social media to spread brand awareness, but a smart marketer could show ROI for a campaign. There are many ways to establish ROI. Click-throughs might work for a company that earns revenue from online advertising or is seeking to increase brand awareness. Anyone that sells something online would want to understand conversions (the ratio of those who clicked through to your website compared to those who purchased a product). There is also some value in knowing who did something in between. Drop out rates can be interesting as well if certain trends start to form. Only analytics can shine the light.

Social tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc. have ROI. You just have to understand what to measure and how to measure. This is where analytics comes into play. The problem is that most individuals only value clicks and not some other form of value. Registrations could be of value. Mailing a brochure. Building a profile. Telling a friend via a share tool. There are many ways to track and produce value and analytics can be the golden ticket–but before you can build the tool you have to know what is valuable to you. Analytics is gold but only if you mine for it first.

Finally, when you are trying to solve a problem for your company, or a client, how do you want to be able to answer this question: “Do you think or do you know?”
If you are using analytics you should always be able to answer “I know.”