Google Docs is pretty sweet. Using the service, you can access your files from anywhere, share with whomever you wish, collaborate on papers and spreadsheets. Still though, if Google really wants to have everyone on the planet using their services, they need to find a way to get Microsoft Office users on board.
DocVerse was founded in 2007 by Microsoft veterans Shan Sinha and Alex DeNeui, who finally gave up on the constant back-and-forth email attachments required to share and edit Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents.
When it comes to working with others on documents, not much has changed in the last 10 years. You save files on your computer, email them back and forth to your friends and coworkers, wait for feedback, manually incorporate everyone’s edits, and then send the new version back out for everyone to review, only to repeat the same cycle.
DocVerse was founded to radically improve the way over 600M people work on Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents. 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 raised its first round of investment in 2008 from world-class investors, including the very same investors who initially backed Google, PayPal and Twitter. Their advisory board includes executives from Microsoft, Google and Adobe.
Well, they may be making moves to do just that. According to the Google Docs Blog, Google has made yet another acquisition, this time acquiring the company DocVerse, which was started by some ex-Microsoft folks and allows web-based collaboration from withing the Microsoft Office suite.
Want to try it out yourself? Well, you can't right now. As with many other Google acquisitions (like Grand Central, which became Voice), they've closed the door to new users while keeping existing accounts active. So you'll just have to wait and see if they go for Google Docs integration, or if a new, highly sought-after beta invitation starts making the rounds in the near future.
