Google's Quickoffice taken behind shed ... 'Oh, what's the gun for?'

Quickoffice, Google's Microsoft Office–compatible productivity app for Android and iOS, is no more – sort of. In a brief note published to the Google Apps blog last week, the company said it soon plans to "unpublish" Quickoffice from Google Play and the iTunes App Store. "Existing users with the app can continue to use it, …

[thomas k.]

Eventual forced replacement?

Does this mean that for those of us that have QuickOffice now, a future update to KitKat will remove it and replace it with Docs, Sheets and Slides at some point?

[ratfox]

Re: Eventual forced replacement?

"Existing users with the app can continue to use it, but no features will be added and new users will not be able to install the app"

I'd assume that installed apps stay installed after updates…? But let's say that in three-four years, it will simply stop working properly with Android Popsicle.

[Anonymous Coward]

When's the anti-trust inquiry due?

Buy up the competition (QuickOffice wasn't a Google product till Google bought the company) and in due course kill the product.

Where have I heard that one before?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: When's the anti-trust inquiry due?

I don't think Quickoffice was ever seen as competition ... to Google.

It was seen as competition to Microsoft Office, that is why Google bought it as it had pretty good Office conversion and they wanted to use that.

I'm not really sure who, apart from Microsoft would be 'harmed' here. Quickoffice developers were happy, users were happy (a once paid for product became free), Google were, I guess, happy.

It is quite different to buying up a competitor to create or maintain a monopoly. The only one that is dominant in the 'office' space is Microsoft.It is good in any field to have serious competitors to dominant players - that's why the Apple IOS, Android, Kindle, WIndowsPhone etc competition is good for consumers. Also why having strong non-Microsoft Office suites would be a very good thing for consumers.

[jnffarrell1]

Re: When's the anti-trust inquiry due?

Google bought Quickoffice because it had broken the proprietary MS/Office code that kept me from updating my stuff (*docx,*.xlsx,*pptx) on my Google Drive. Adding the ability to edit my stuff on my drive breaks the MS/Office monopoly on my stuff.

About a year ago Google said 90% of users only want/need Apps that can edit MS proprietary formats; they don't need the integrated fru-fru sold as enterprise solutions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not unexpected

The standalone apps (all free) eclipse QuickOffice in functionality. It's purpose is complete,

[Gordon 11]

Re: Not unexpected

eclipse QuickOffice in functionality

No, they don't. They force you to store the document on Google Drive. QuickOffice let you access anything, anywhere on your own device.

[phil dude]

Re: Not unexpected

i thought they fixed that?

On a side note, I wonder how hard it is to port Libreoffice to DALVIK....?

P.

[BitDr]

Re: Not unexpected

Seems a no brainer, libre office on DALVIK... must be problematic though, the guys at Libre should have had this in the works a long time ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Taken behind the shed and …

not shot, but rather dismembered.

Still, Mozilla really didn't take off until they took their combined product (aka Netscape Communicator) and split apart the web browser and email client parts.

[monkeyfish]

How large are the replacements?

The thing I liked about quickoffice (aside from the fact it could open pdfs as well as office docs) is that it was a small program with just enough functions to make it useful. How large are the replacements? Apple and MS's three individual apps take ~700MB each, that's quite a large chunk of a 16GB ipad for all three.

[Tony Paulazzo]

You will be missed

It was the first decent (and nicely priced) iOS Office product that could open / save docx and xlsx whilst retaining the formatting and opened fast - used on the iPad.

I hope the developers got a nice pay off from Google, they definitely deserved it.

[earl grey]

Pew Pew Pew

There. Took care of Old Yaller and the Yearling.