Google today retired the Writely name and look and feel, replacing it with the cumbersome "Google Docs & Spreadsheets."
Writely users won't notice much in the way of new functionality; Google's main focus has been combining users' lists of their documents and spreadsheets into one view and keying them off their Google account (which also means a single method for sharing documents and spreadsheets with collaborators). The top left corner of your Google pages is starting to get crowded with all the services Google offers: Google, Gmail, Calendar, Photos, Docs & Spreadsheets…
Google bought Writely in March of this year, so this integration took eight months. Pretty speedy. Yahoo!, by comparison, bought Oddpost in July 2004 but it took them until September 2006—over two years—to roll the new Ajax-ified Yahoo! Mail out to the general public. Similarly, other Yahoo! acquisitions like Flickr and del.icio.us still live in splendid isolation from Yahoo!'s other services.
An unfair comparison? Perhaps. Nevertheless, these kinds of comparisons are a big reason why people are saying Yahoo! is quickly losing its edge to Google.
Link.
Tags: Google, Writely, office 2.0, web 2.0, spreadsheets, Yahoo!