Google Cloud Connect Rains on Microsoft

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The small-business sun is clearly setting on Redmond.

A few weeks back, bitter software rival Google(GOOG) commenced its most direct assault yet on Microsoft's core small-business products. The Mountain View, Calif.-based software borg formally launched something called Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office.

Google's Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office sneaks right into Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint content to enable real-time collaboration.

Cloud Connect began life as DocVerse, a startup that was the brainchild of two former Microsoft(MSFT) developers. The tool, which was gobbled up by Google last year -- geeks really do make Wall Street look like a food co-op -- enables real-time collaboration of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint content. And it does so running from a user's computer and not via a Web browser, which is how Google Docs pulls of the same collab trick.

To get a feel for the small-business upside of the nonbrowser-based Cloud Connect -- and to get a sense of just how grim life looks for Microsoft now that Google is openly poaching in its backyard -- I downloaded the app and gave it the once-over.

What you get
Google Cloud Connect brazenly offers seamless Web integration for much of Microsoft Office's line of desktop software.

There is no way to soft-pedal this: Google is openly mocking Microsoft with Cloud Connect. The software, which is a diabolically simple, free downloadable application, sets up shop right inside Microsoft Office files. Once installed, there the Cloud Connect plug-in is, inside the file, just underneath the ubiquitous Microsoft ribbon. "Audacious" is understating it.

Cloud Connect passively connects to the Web and creates a unique Internet address inside the Google App universe for each file. Then it "syncs" -- that is, rips off -- the content in that Word file, plunks it down in the Google Docs Web address and lets others store, sync and otherwise rip off data from their Microsoft files. It's pure genius.

And though you do need to be connected to the Web, you do not need to launch a browser. While it sounds nuts, the tool does enable small teams to use Google's infrastructure to collaborate on Microsoft's documents. You can't make it up.