What many have referred to as the future "Google Office" is actually called "Docs & Spreadsheets" and was officially launched today. This new product offering is actually a combination of the Writely and Google Spreadsheet product silos into a single control panel and admin area. Before this, documents created in Writely and in Google Spreadsheets lived separately but now are combined.

TechCrunch reports that "this is not a deep product integration, but it is another shot across the bow of Microsoft Office." They point out that "the new site shows all of a user’s Writely and spreadsheet documents in a single list, but integration goes no further. The interfaces and features of the two products have also been mostly mirrored to provide a consistent user experience. For example, chat previously available only on the spreadsheet product, is now available when working on a Writely document as well."

Why is Google Docs and Spreadsheets such a threat to products like Microsoft Office? Well first of all it is free. That is the obvious but there is also the fact that a user can import and collaborate on a document, and then publish it to the web or take it back to the desktop, is a powerful feature not currently available to Microsoft Office users outside of Office Live or Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server. There is also the fact that many people including myself, have disliked Microsoft's monopoly that they have held for years and invite new products that compete directly with them. Products like this can also be very useful for small businesses, especially those who are just starting out and cannot afford the pricey Microsoft Office Suite. Oh, and did I mention... its free?

News.com reports on some of the future plans for this application including integration with Gmail (when you get a word processing file or a spreadsheet as an attachment, you'll have the option to open the file in Docs and Spreadsheets), the introduction of APIs so other programmers can access the functionality of the applications and possibly offering a disconnected version, for users who want to access files when they are offline.

Google is not the only company that threatens the traditional Microsoft Office application. There is also Zoho and ThinkFree, online office suites that are much more robust than Google's current offering.