Microsoft Office plays a significant role in your engineering environment. Just think about the number of Excels you have to manage your bill of materials, work schedules, task lists, etc. Replacing all these files with the PDM (or event PLM) system can be a good idea. However, it doesn’t happen in many organizations. Why so? There are multiple reasons why… Cost, complexity, implementation hassle. Is there an option to help engineers to collaborate without going to heavy implementation cycles? Some time ago, I posted – DropBox and PLM Made Simple.
Few days ago I learned about Google’s option to allow to synchronize Microsoft Office files (i.e. Word, Excel, PowerPoint) via Google Cloud Connect. Read the article – Microsoft Office files can be share with Google Cloud Connect and take a look on the following short video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H12teRzulW0&feature=player_embedded
I found the usage of Google Cloud Connect easy and powerful. If you need to sync your Excel BOM files or other Office file, the Google Cloud Connect environment can transparently do the work. I learned Google Cloud Connect was based off technology developed by DocVerse, a company Google acquired in 2009. It costs $50 a year per user to use Connect and it is also part of the Appsperience from Google.
What is my conclusion? Connection data via cloud becomes a trend. I can see more companies are using this capabilities. Earlier this year I learn about SolidWorks n!Fuze cloud remake. Supply chain and some other collaborative scenarios can be a sweet spot for such technologies. Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg
