Nov 25, 2010 15:26 GMT  ·  By

Commenting on Google’s announcements of Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office, Andrew Kisslo, a Sr. Product Manager with Office, noted that the Mountain View-based company is essentially waving the white flag on the productivity front. In Kisslo’s perspective the search giant is now embracing Office as the preferred productivity environment, recommending it to all its Google Apps users.

Google Cloud Connect is an Office 2010, 2007 and 2003 plug-in designed to connect the productivity suite from the Redmond company to Google Docs. The extension hit Beta earlier this week and is currently in private testing.

With this move it appears that intensive efforts to advertise Google Docs as an alternative to Office, Google is actually embracing Microsoft’s Word, Excel and PowerPoint components, per the “if you can’t beat them, join them” model.

“I think this is welcome news for many users who gain another way to share documents in whatever way they prefer,” Kisslo said.

“In fact, just last week, we were pleased to announce that the new Facebook Social Inbox would also offer users to ability view Microsoft files via the Office Web Apps with just one click from their Facebook email.”

Microsoft has been constantly expanding in the Cloud over the past years, and the company recently unveiled its hosted productivity offering dubbed Office 365.

With the advent of Office 2010, which is reportedly the fastest selling version of Office in history, the software giant also unveiled Office Web Apps, a direct rival to Google Docs, albeit only in tandem with the desktop version of the suite.

“As great as Cloud Connect is for users giving them more choice, I still think Google Docs Does Not Make Office Better and this announcement acknowledges Mountain View's struggle to figure out how to build a productivity suite that is business ready,” Kisslo added.

“I still believe the best way to collaborate is without messy connectors, add on's and after-market parts.”

According to Kisslo, Cloud Connect is illustrative of the fact that the search giant now understands the fact that people want the full experience of Office.

“Supporting more users means supporting more requirements. That leads to complexity of features which Google appears to openly dismiss. They almost revel in uniformity and simplicity, almost to a fault. So by fully embracing Office, they are in fact waving a white flag on their play to replace Office,” Kisslo concluded.

Office Home and Business 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download here.

Office Home and Student 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download
here.

Office Professional 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download
here.