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How to use Google Books?

What serious issues might a 10-person office face if they just use net books with wi-fi and Google mail/docs?

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    My experience is that 's answer is the real sticking point: Cross referencing and embedding data objects from one document inside another document is not really possible with Google Docs. It is tough to copy & paste from one to the other (e.g. inserting a static presentation chart into a word processing doc, or taking a table of numbers from your spreadsheet and pasting it as a table into the presentation). I also believe there are (or were) some size limitations in terms of documents.  This is usually not a problem, but depending on what you are doing, it is possible to make a spreadsheet that is too big. Assuming not everyone you do business with will be using Google Docs, there are some formatting issues when translating/converting from Microsoft to Google Docs.  This is of course only a real problem when you are integrating a document from them to you.  The other way is fine, but it might come out looking a bit funky sometimes.  Some style / design components just don't match up well. Lastly, I found that spreadsheet formulas were good enough, but document macros were really a non-starter.  The formula creation process itself was more cumbersome than other products, but it worked. In terms of style, the Google Docs applications won't produce as fancy a product as some other applications, but that did not bother me.  It looks professional. I did find that Google Sites made an excellent repository for material, and even gives a very rudimentary form of source control.  You at least know when it was last updates and by whom.  You can cross link it to Google Docs - or just include files created by the native apps on your netbooks.  As with any web-site, it helps if you have a good plan for the final look before you start.  It is cumbersome to restructure it after it is built.

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If you go 100% to the cloud and assuming by netbook you mean something like a Chromebook here are some business continuity and productivity issues to consider: 1. You have no local backup so if the Gdocs are deleted accidentally or otherwise then they are could be lost for good. If employees leave and you don't have acess to their mail/docs (depending on type of Gapps account) then their information stores are not accessible. If any information is subject to audit then you are putting the business at risk. If Google has an outage then it becomes very difficult to service customers. You get the idea... 2. You will need to ensure that your internet and wi-fi connections and devices are sized appropriately as ALL your normal file based local network traffic will now need to go over the internet. Not doing this will seriously hamper employee productivity.  A normal ADSL line won't cut  it - upload speeds are not same as download speeds. Invest in a proper leased circuit even if it seems expensive. 3. If the internet connection to your office or wi-fi in the office is disrupted (it WILL happen!) you then have no wired network or file server to fall back on. Printing and file sharing is then impossible. In most cases of short term disruption employees can work from home. Longer term you need to have alternative office space available in case of a disaster or build up your connectivity resilience (e.g ADSL backup). Keep spares of all commonly used network devices to hand. So in summary: Before going down this route scope the risks, evaluate them for impact and then plan on how to reduce, avoid or cope with them accordingly. The cost to do this versus the potential business impacts is part of the decision making for this assessment.

Johnathan Reid

Printing is the only thing that comes to mind. Otherwise, Google Apps and the add-ons from Google apps and other web apps on the  Internet can easily make you function 100% just by being connected on the Internet. If you do not have any internet outages, etc. then all is fine. Else you might want to invest in having a redundant Wifi. You may also want to give Jolicloud a look - http://www.jolicloud.com

Faisal Khan

Something else that you might encounter is that Google Docs isn't really that good in advanced layouts. And integrating tables, images etc in documents will not be as easy compared to Word, Pages, etc.

Floris Vlasveld

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