Category: Google G Suite

The Google Drive team is rolling out an update to the web that allows you to preview password protected Microsoft Office documents.  The update is rolling out to everyone and should get to your account over the course of the next few days.  Once you have it, if you attempt to open a password protected file, you will be prompted for the password and can then preview the file.  The key word here is preview.  You won’t be able to edit the document nor will you be able to open it up in Google Docs, Sheets or Slides.  It is a read-only preview.

While it is limited, this is a nice edition to Google Drive.  Many users store Microsoft files on Drive so being able to at least preview a document before going through the process of opening it up in the apps could potentially save some time.  Interestingly, the ability to open or preview password protected files is something that even Microsoft does not offer with Office 365 online.

Google today announced that what has been known as Google for Work has been rebranded as Google Cloud.  The new name encompasses many Google apps, platforms and services into one cloud-centric solution for businesses.

Google Cloud spans every layer. It includes all of Google Cloud Platform; our user facing collaboration and productivity applications — now named G Suite; all of our machine learning

tools and APIs, the enterprise maps APIs; and the Android phones, tablets and Chromebooks that access the cloud. All of this, built for the cloud from the get-go.

Moreover, Google Cloud has been engineered in an enterprise appropriate way, with integrated systems that include guarantees at the service level — all components integrated and meeting the SLA for whatever price point the customer chooses.

The change in name and direction of the solution isn’t just about products.  It is also the backend support that Google will provide to their customers to go through the digital transformation that Google Cloud can offer.  As they put it, “We are in it together”.  Customers won’t have to figure it out on their own and that, especially for smaller businesses, can be a huge relief and cost savings.