14 DAY TRIAL // The Chromebook Pixel is a beautiful device looking for a purpose in life; it's too expensive to be a second machine, except for a few rich people, and Chrome OS is too limited to be your main platform, even if you're a big believer in the cloud.
But Google is working on the last part, one of the things that it promised would make Chrome OS better, down the line, is a Quickoffice Chrome app.
Google's acquisition of Quickoffice last year was somewhat surprising, the company already has a capable office suite, the Google Drive apps, and it's been expanding it into the mobile space.
What's more, Quickoffice's claim to fame was its support for Microsoft document formats, not something Google would have much use of, at first glance. But, it turns out, that's exactly what Google was interested in.
Being able to offer a powerful office suite for Chrome, which boasts great support for Microsoft formats, could be a big win for Google since it does away with one of the big hurdles in making the switch from Windows, Microsoft documents.
Google was able to "port" the iOS and Android app to the web by using its Native Client technology, which enables developers to builds apps written in C/C++ into platform-agnostic Native Client apps with relative ease.
Native Client has been available in Chrome, and only in Chrome, for a while, and it's gotten some attention from game developers, but it is still very much a niche technology.
The Quickoffice apps may not change that, but they should be an example to other developers of what can be done with the technology.
If Google wants to push Chrome OS outside of its niche and into the mainstream, which it definitely does, it's going to need more powerful apps than what's currently available in the Web Store. Native Client should help with that.