Another day, another Google acquisition!
Google acquired the last piece of its Google Office puzzle… The search engine giant on Tuesday announced that it has purchased “the assets” of Zenter, which produces software for the creation of online slide presentations, according to Sam Schillace, Google engineering director.
With the purchase Google has one of the last pieces for its presentation tool — GooglePoint if you will. The new presentation software will add to Google’s growing collection of Web-based applications, including GMail, calendar, word processing and spreadsheets.
According to reports, the new site will offer a number of features including a varied choice of Web-based fonts as well as tools which can be used to alter images through different colors and stretch tools.
Schillace said it is all about sharing in a blog post:
You have heard us talk a lot about using the web to improve group collaboration and information sharing. These days, when you create a document — whether it is a text document, a spreadsheet, or a presentation — you usually want to share it, collect feedback, or communicate about it in some way.
We on the Google Docs & Spreadsheets team focus on making this experience easier and more powerful for you. In particular, we are working to add presentation-sharing capabilities to Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and we are excited about the addition of Zenter’s technology and team to that effort.
There were blogosphere rumblings back in February that Google was working on presentation tool for Google Docs & Spreadsheets under the code name Presently — a play on Writely, an online word-processing application Google acquired in March 2006.
Google did not announce anything until late April, though, when it acquired Tonic Systems. Tonic produces technology for presentation creation and document conversion and Google said at the time that the company would assist in adding presentation sharing and collaboration capabilities to Google Docs & Spreadsheets.
Zenter first unveiled its service in mid-March and has since stayed fairly quiet. The service lets users import Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, as well as grab bits of content from all over the Web for making presentations that can be viewed and shared in the Web browser. Users can also create their own live broadcasts, similar to many of the Web-based PowerPoint competitors that have popped up in the last few years.
While Google has not announced a timeline of when we can expect to see the official presentation application, as of last week, users of Google’s Gmail service have been able to open attached PowerPoint files inside their message windows without having the software installed.
Zenter, which has been acquired for an undisclosed sum, is also said to have been trying to develop ways to let users share their presentations and art, as well as allow audiences to comment on presentations carried out using the application.
We have already freed those of you working in teams from the burdens of version control and email attachment overload when going back and forth on word processing and spreadsheets, said Google engineering director Sam Shillace.
“It just made sense to add presentations to the mix – after all, when you create slides, you are almost always going to share them.”
Zenter joins Tonic Systems, another presentation-creation service Google picked up back in April.
Couple Zenter with Tonic Systems and Google is on equal footing with Zoho, says Om Malik. Dan has a deep dive on Zoho.
Founded by Wayne Crosby and Robby Walker at the beginning of this year, Zenter was one of 12 start-up firms including Reddit and Justin.TV to be funded by US venture firm Y Combinator in 2007.
Before the announcement, Mr. Crosby had admitted to hoping to become the “Gmail of PowerPoint” to the Business2.0 blog.
The move apparently happened quickly. Zenter’s Web site now features a brief “Google has acquired Zenter” notice and directs inquiries to Google media officials.