In this Research Article, Mr. Paarni address the current situation of SaaS based Back-Office Solutions, Google Docs and Office Live. Lifetime Studios offer Beta evaluations to dozens of Web Services.

1. Lifetime Scope Journal (LSJ)
Mr. R. Päärni | Issue 3
Lifetime Scope 2030 Research
SME Business Operations
Introduction
Google Docs offer significant possibilities for SME businesses to deliver quality back-office services and
increase their Office interoperability. Google Docs (The new version) has chat, character-by-character
real time co-editing, and makes imports and exports much better to multiple office formats. In this
paper Mr. Risto Päärni compares current Google Docs and Microsoft Office Live solutions in the market.
Is it time to change your Office environment? What benefits does SaaS based solution offer?
Targeting the Corporate Need for Back-Office
Solution
Lifetime Scope 2030 Research studies the new possibilities of Google Docs for small and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Secondly we investigate the Microsoft Office Live
interoperability with Google Docs. Finally we give an analysis wether or time is ready switching from
traditional Office Application in to Service based Office (SaaS).
The needs of the SMEs are well known and documented. Every Entrepreneur needs a good Back-Office
supporting software.
The challenge for a start-up enterprise is how to create Business style documents from the scratch like,
reports, balance sheets, . PDFs and presentations in a quick and easy manner. The Output has to look
Professional, yet personal, that is covered with the new Company's own Brand.
The solutions I have been using over the years are many. Microsoft Office, Open Office, both offer
good solutions for PC and Linux Platform. Both Office packages needs to be installed to locally. The
web based back-office solution offer multiple online editing of the document. This adds the possibility
to use Google Docs as work-flow tool.
The Google Docs offer different, Software as a Service (SaaS) based solution. Instead of local install I
just use the Google Docs over the Internet. This suits well to those that have fast Internet Access at
their reach.
The new functionality of Google Docs is impressive. Here is a short list of the new possibilities:
• Google Docs now has a collaborative drawings editor that makes it easy to build organizational
charts, flow charts, design diagrams etc.
• Google spreadsheets are fast and easy to use. In the new version, columns can be dragged
and dropped, the formula bar is editable, auto-complete speeds up data entry, and you can
link directly to sheets.
• the ability to upload, store, and share any file in Google Docs. Your files will be stored in their
original format and downloadable from anywhere. Uploading files to the cloud allows them to
be safely stored and accessible at all times.
• Now you can simultaneously share a group of docs with your friends, coworkers, or family, by
sharing an entire folder with them. You can choose wether you want to sharie a folder, or a
document. You can give access rights, like edit, read etc.
• Sometimes you need to upload many documents. Yes, use Upload function to upload multiple
files quickly to your Docs.
• Click Google Docs, What's new? to see more of the new functionality.
1 Lifetime Scope Journal (LSJ). The Leading Finnish Internet Brand since 1989

2. See yourself some of the possibilities including Collaboration tools with simultaneous Document editing
f.e.
A New Google Docs (YouTube Video)
You can get more information about from Google Docs homepage.
Interoperability between Google Docs and
Microsoft Office
For anyone working with office applications one of tasks that needs to be complished is how to import
documents from Microsoft Office and vice versa. I have worked with two real world example
documents, the paycheck Excel file, and Travel Expense Report. Both include multiple, monthly divided
pages, that include fields cumulative to each page. Also, these Excel sheets include Company Logo
Picture, Some Bank Account Numbers, eInvoicing Data, etc. Every page has to formatted so that it
easily fits in one page for the approvals and accounting needs, when printed.
In my reset test setup, I gathered the Google Spreadsheets Old version created excel sheet, imported
this file in to MS Excel 2007 Professional, changed the sheet details, uploaded the new document in to
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Office Live Workspace and back. Finally, I uploaded the modified Excel sheet to Google Docs. Google
Docs converted the file back to Google Docs format.
In this real world test I did not find any major problems. The Upload/download functionality in both
environments worked perfectly, and without any effort. Inside the sheets, some changes happened.
Some of the cell properties functionality obviously were lost in both way uploading. Basically this
means that both enviroments have their own set of functionality. Also fonts seemed to convert OK. You
can avoid this by using basic functionality with the cells.
All together, the readiness of Google Docs in this area seems to be in acceptable level. No data were
lost, and fixing few field properties made the documents again approvable.
Lifetime Studios deliver Strategic support for Back-
Office Operations
Do you feel it is time to update your Office Strategy?. Now there is a solution.
2 3
We here at the Lifetime Studios use Google Docs and Office Live Workspace
in our business operations daily. Creating expense reports, Travel Reports, Wage Reports, writing
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Books, Creating Presentations are all made with Google Docs. Lifetime Studios use the wealth of new
templates created already in to Google Docs Library to deliver our readers enhanced and pleasure
reading experience. We export these documents into various SaaS environments and ecosystems.
This document is written with Google Docs, then uploaded as .PDF file to Scribd. Version 0.3.
Lifetime Studios offer support for Finnish Entrepreneurs with Google Docs help B-to-B conferencing and online help. Contact us
when you want to update your Back-Office Strategy or start-up a new way of delivering Business Operations over the Internet.
+358 50 438 2295 /ristopaarni@gmail.com. Thank You!
1. Office Live Workspace is a Trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
2. Lifetime Studios, Espoo, Finland deliver quality solutions for SMEs.
3. Google Docs is a Trademark of Google Corporation.
4. Lifetime Studios is Digital Productions Concept owned by Lifetime Oy Ltd. Espoo, Finland.
1 Lifetime Scope Journal (LSJ). The Leading Finnish Internet Brand since 1989