Google Hysteria Strikes Again

Bloggers love to talk about Google.  Just ask Technorati.  The leading blog search engine returns 4,133,692 results for Google, 3,213,513 for Yahoo, and 1,848,899 for Microsoft.  Heck, poor ol' Paris Hilton only generates 220,173 mentions.  (Of course, as is often the case, Technorati flaked out and at one point insisted there were no matches for Yahoo.  A page reload fixed that.)

This week the chatter is all about Google spreadsheets.  And how it either means the end of Google because they've wandered so far away from their core mission.  Or how it means the end of Microsoft because they Google will squash Redmond like a bug.  Heck, even the Wall Street Journal online sent out a breaking news email to announce Google's Spreadsheet.  Breaking news?

Please, everyone, let's get a grip. 

"Could this be the beginning of the end for Microsoft?" Not likely.  Best estimates are that less than half of the U.S. population accesses the Internet by a broadband connection.  Forrester Research predicts it will jump up to 62 percent -- in 2010.  So right there you are only looking at half the country being able to really take advantage of Google Spreadsheet, Writely, and similar products.

Second, a significant portion of the half of the country that uses broadband, probably uses Microsoft Office products primarily for a work environment.  How many companies do you know who are going to allow their internal data -- the kind of stuff that finds its way into many spreadsheets -- to travel out over the Internet?  Not many.

And what of business travelers?  I know JetBlue is working to put WiFi in the air, but do you really want to depend on the reliability of that service to be able to work on a cross country flight?  And what of anyone who flies another airline?  Heck, most airlines can't keep their bathrooms and coffee pots working correctly, so why should we think the WiFi would be different?

Now, I'm not knocking all online apps.  There's certainly a place for them.  Even Google Spreadsheet (well, at least Writely.  I'm highly skeptical of the Spreadsheet app because I see a major disconnect between the users of such products and the problems I noted above -- when was the last time your Grandma created a spreadsheet anyway?). 

But it is a difficult leap to gain serious market penetration by taking a desktop app and moving it to the Web 2.0 world.

All this said, it ain't the end of Google by a longshot.  Have they wandered off into the wilderness?  Maybe.  But it's too early for those of us not privy to their internal strategy discussions to know for sure.  Certainly they have focused little on search of late and have gotten more deeply into other arenas.  And a number of folks have questioned how much growth is still possible in the PPC search ad model. 

But we need to wait and see what's going to happen.  Getting wound up in hysteria over Google -- pro or con makes no sense.  Let's all sit back and breathe -- and maybe explore other things to write about?

UPDATE: Despite the overreaction by many, there are thoughtful posts out there.  Mike Arrington over at TechCrunch has a good take on recent Google developments along with links to other Google "rants," including Om Malik ("Is Google Wasting Its Genius Cycles?") and Paul Kedrosky ("Where Microsoft used to ruin markets by taking all the revenues to itself, Google takes a nuclear winter approach wherein it ruins markets by freezing them and then cutting revenues to zero.")