Google's cloud office suite, Docs, is slowly picking up adopters. Targeted at those who don't need all the bells and whistles of Microsoft Office, the tools have been getting more and more attention especially with the growing use of Google Apps which comes with Docs bundled. Now, Docs has scored a major victory by becoming the default office suite in the upcoming Ubuntu Netbook Remix 10.4 Lucid Lynx.

Granted it's not going to send user numbers through the roof, but it's a clear sign that Docs, and cloud apps in general, are becoming mature enough to be considered as a replacement for traditional, locally installed software, especially for something like a document editing. The move isn't set in stone yet, but the current plans are to replace the OpenOffice suite with the equivalent Google Docs tools.

With Netbook Remix aimed squarely at, what else, netbooks which, by definition, are designed mostly for web tasks, a cloud office suite makes perfect sense. Netbooks are relatively underpowered and the early ones had limited storage space. A default OpenOffice install weighs in at several hundred MB, not a small amount when you only have 4 GB in total, like the first Eee's had.

In terms of speed and responsiveness, again, even more important on a netbook than in laptops or desktops, Google Docs can actually hold its own against OpenOffice which is built on Java and isn't exactly renowned for its small memory footprint or CPU usage. Netbooks aren't designed for document or spreadsheet processing so the developers believe that Docs will be sufficient for most of the tasks users are likely to do on a netbook. Of course, OpenOffice will still be available in the repositories for those who want a full-fledged office suite.

However, it's somewhat of an odd move from Ubuntu as, as open as Google may be, it clashes somewhat with the philosophy behind Ubuntu and open-source software as a whole. And, at least some, users are pretty vocal in their dislike of the move, though it's clear many of them don't really understand what it means and see it as Ubuntu dropping support for office apps for Netbooks which isn't exactly accurate. As a side note, this editor has dropped OpenOffice and has been using Google Docs on Ubuntu for a couple of months now and never looked back, though this certainly doesn't mean that it's a suitable replacement for everyone, even most people.

Ubuntu may be the most popular Linux distribution, but that's not saying much for an OS platform which is still in the low single digits in terms of market share. And Netbook Remix users are a small part of Ubuntu's user base so, in terms of actual users, this doesn't mean much for Google. But a vote of confidence from the world's most popular open-source operating system is still a significant achievement. [via digitizor.com]