There are more than a few screenshots over at TechCrunch talking about Google's new calendar software. Ajax based, integrated into gmail, portable, yada, yada, yada. I'll spare you the tech details, suffice to say its yet another web calendar. Nothing new here, all portals have had sucky web based calendars for ages. What is more interesting is the amount of interest and need people have for a Google-delivered calendar software. This is, by far, the most expected and desired feature since Outlook Web Access back in 2003. I have never seen more people look forward to a product this much and desire it so bad. Now if Google is smart enough to build in sharing to this calendar it may be a defacto winner on the day it launches. Why? Full integration. Look at Gmail. It integrates (albeit sucky) chat client, file storage, pop3 access, group subscriptions, tagging, flagging and no advertising on outbound or inbound mail (unlike Yahoo). So basically with a calendar this is a lightweight Outlook Web Access with more features and pesky side-text ads? Now as a standalone this is no match for Outlook or OWA. But if it gets any level of management, sharing and policies…. Well, it becomes a fight over the desktop (yes, again) and where you spend your day. I spend more time in Outlook than any other app. If that app suddenly becomes a web page does it take a lot of people away from the Office suite by default? Thats a big question. What is interesting is the amount of people that say "Hey, check out Google *.*, I use and love it." – Thats what everyone was saying about Outlook 2003 when it launched and now those words are associated with Google. Would you switch? or have you already? And yes, sucky is my new word of the day.

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