Have you used Google Docs collaboratively with another person? While I type, I see what you're typing.
If you instead use Excel files stored on the network, and you and I want to "collaborate" on a document, at best we're ping-ponging the file back and forth to each other. Sometimes we collide, and have to Merge - which is very painful if we've made any kind of extensive changes.
Suggesting Sharepoint / SVN is a reasonable solution to how to collaborate is like suggesting one telegraph system over another. It's not remotely the same thing, at all.
Office 365 is much better, granted. But the SkyDrive interface is no better (and in many ways worse) than Google Docs.
Yeah I have actually. It's horrible and really unreliable when document sizes get realistic (40+ pages). Not only that it's so easy to fuck up the document structure badly.
I wouldn't use Excel files on a network. I'd use a database or chuck the xlsx into SVN. Changes to complex data need to be managed. Don't expect miracles. There are edge cases where Google Docs will get this wrong. Sync needs human decisions made occasionally.
See my other comments about usage of SVN/Sharepoint and the use cases.
Office 365 is sharepoint. Skydrive is actually a variety of sharepoint. The interface isn't great but neither is google docs, which is why larger companies tend to just use Sharepoint Workspace which is a desktop app for accessing sharepoint portals.
Isn't that just another point in his favor? It's easy to say "you're doing it wrong, just learn how to use these other technologies so Office works correctly", but most users would obviously prefer a product where "doing it right" is the default behavior. I'm speaking of course only with respect to the feature being discussed here (collaborative editing); I don't have much of an opinion on Office vs Drive overall.
Not really. It's a known problem since the dawn of computing: How do you control multiple users accessing a binary file cleanly over the network?
The solutions that are generally accepted as the right solutions are:
1. Version control systems. So in this case, SVN or Sharepoint (yes it is a version control system for documents).
2. Collaborative editing.
3. Synchronisation.
In favour of point 1 which I always suggest using, history is possible to tie to a user always, centrally controlled, archivable on your own site, actually really easy to manage and allows people to work entirely offline. It scales to mega-sized documents as well. Imagine our typical formal specs (sorry we're too finicky about quality to do agile) which are 200-280 pages long in Google Docs?
Point 2 can lead to odd corruption. If you've ever actually done any collaborative editing with 2 or more people on Google docs or dealt with the crock of shit that is Numbers or Pages and iCloud on the Mac you'll know where I'm coming from.
Point 3 is just the transport layer for 2 and 1. OneNote does this, very well.
So the point is moot. Just because it complains at you that you're doing it wrong, doesn't mean the technical solution doesn't require some work on your part.
sharepoint/svn avoids these issues.