There’s been a push over the past few years to move more and more applications “to the cloud”, and off of your desktop / laptop computer.  Google docs has been trying to convert MS Office users away from the traditional Word, Excel, etc. applications to use the online application.

The functionality is pretty good, and it’s neat to be able to store and share your documents online.  You can edit them from anywhere, right in your browser.   However, with all “cloud” applications, there is still the risk of downtime, as this article shows:

Google Docs Stumbles, Goes Down

I think google is trying to remedy this, but creating a hybrid approach, where you can store documents “offline” on your computer, and sync up with the online version.  This may be a solid approach that works in the long run.

However, it’s still a bit risky to store your documents online.  Security is another big issue.  If  someone hacks (that never happens, right?)  into the “cloud” where the documents are stored, your sensitive data could be at risk.  When so much data is centralized like that, it’s a huge target for hackers.  Also, since these platforms offer easy “sharing”, you need to be careful you don’t accidentally share a confidential document with the whole world.

In summary, I think Google Docs has its place, but for mission critical and confidential documents, I’m still sticking with local apps, and local storage.