Google Acquires DocVerse

Another week day, another Google acquisition. This time, Google bought DocVerse, a company founded by two former Microsoft employees which built a plug-in for Microsoft Office that lets you collaborate with other people in real-time.

"DocVerse combines the benefits of web-based collaboration tools like Google Docs and Zoho with the power and familiarity of the world's most popular productivity application, Microsoft Office. DocVerse offers the first ever product to truly enable real-time sharing and editing of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel files. Its key advantage is that it does not require you to learn a new way to work by seamlessly plugging into Microsoft Office."

DocVerse doesn't use Google Docs as a back-end for real-time collaboration, but Google will probably integrate with Google Docs.


Google says that many people "are still accustomed to desktop software", so the acquisition will help these users to try cloud computing services while still using their favorite software.

DocVerse's blog offers an interesting perspective of a two former Microsoft employees: "We fundamentally believe that Google is one of the best positioned companies to truly disrupt the world of productivity software. We're looking forward to the opportunity to scale our vision at Google. Our first step will be to combine DocVerse with Google Apps to create a bridge between Microsoft Office and Google Apps."

Google says that you can no longer create a new DocVerse account, but there's a simple way to try the Microsoft Office plug-in. Download the setup and create a new account when DocVerse asks you to log in.