For my information technology class last year, we had to do an assignment where we compared Microsoft Office 2007, Google Docs, Open Office and Zoho on specific functionality. I am basing some of this weeks comments upon my investigation last year.
Google docs Document appears to be very basic, yet two of the three functions (Table of Contents, mail merge and picture watermark) that were examined for my previous assignment turned out to be incredibly difficult to achieve.
As a user, I was extremely disappointed with the help pages available within the Google docs site. In a help menu I expect to find an answer from an expert, not simply user generated comments. In this case, it was much more useful to head to their propriety site and search for help there.
Personally, I am a big fan of Microsoft Office for work purposes. I think it is very easy to use and offers a variety of functionality to improve the "presentation" of your materials. Google docs is beneficial for sharing documents between multiple collaborators, and therefore has a use within an academic setting, but again I feel that it is very limited in its functionality.
One final point about Google docs - it is nice to have everything available from one page, and so that is a distinct advantage of Google.
good call the user generated "help" function - I found that very disappointing. When I resort to the "help" tab I am expecting something like a manual entry instead of a list of other people's particular issues - solved or not. In some instances you still "get what you pay for" I appreciated your careful comparison of the different brands - strengths and weaknesses.
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