Internet giant Google has announced major updates for Google Apps collaboration tools.
Late last week the company announced that Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office is available worldwide, allowing users to add a plugin for Office that will allow integration with Google Docs.
“The plugin syncs your work through Google’s cloud, so everyone can contribute to the same version of a file at the same time,” the company said in a blog post.
“Learning the benefits of web-powered collaboration will help more people make a faster transition to 100% web collaboration tools.”
The company announced a “90-Day Appsperience” program which will allow companies to pay a small fee to access Google Docs and Cloud Connect to get a feel for how it works.
“And companies trying Google Apps can use the new collaboration dashboard in the Google Apps control panel to assess the value of our tools,” the company says.
“The dashboard provides data on how people are using Apps to collaborate more efficiently without the hassles of document versions, check-in/check-out or attachments.”
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
