GoogleRumors.com (isn’t it amazing that there’s an entire site and community devoted to the “what’s google up to now” rumormill? Wow…) is reporting that Google is planning to unveil a calendaring product, or perhaps a web 2.0 style application that will give you comprehensive calendaring functionality through the web using your Google account. We don’t know what to expect yet, but we do know that the website calendar.google.com points at the Google homepage right now, which is different and unusual unless they were about to do something with the domain.
Reading some of the comments, a lot of people think this is going to be some downloadable offering that will have to stand up against everything from Outlook to Palm Desktop to iCal, and I think that’s probably the stupidest thought, not to mention the foolhardiest thing Google could do with this. Web 2.0 is obviously the way to go for mobile and accessable application delivery in the future ,so why would Google go through the trouble of competing with everyone from Apple to Microsoft when they could forge into new ground? Right now, I can’t think of many comprehensive online calendaring services that allow you the opportunity to log in and manage a calendar through the web, and the ones I can think of (Corporate Time, .Mac, etc) are either tied to a desktop app or for-fee services. It only makes sense that they would integrate the service with GMail to offer a more complete package, and maybe even with Desktop Search and whatnot, and potentially offer the capabilities at some point to synch with other calendaring applications like Outlook and iCal so you can take your calendar on the go, not just where you have access to Outlook/Exchange or your Mac.
I just got a bit incensed that people just weren’t using their heads when I read the comment; sometimes people just don’t think before they speak. But regardless, on to the link!
[ http://www.googlerumors.com/2005/09/30/google-calendar-may-be-days-away-from-launch/ ]