I did wonder why, all of a sudden, I’d started getting emails from Google, y’know, announcing stuff rather than me having to read about it on someone else’s blog first.

Looks like the big G has put some of its computing power behind that cumbersome task of answering press queries.

We asked for some follow up on this story:

Google unites free Word and Excel rivals

Here’s what we got:

1. The development environment we’re using

It’s a proprietary development environment at Google. We generally don’t
disclose details about our development environment at Google.

2. Monetisation options

There are no ads on Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Currently, we’re focused solely on creating the best possible user experience.

3. Whether it’s competitive with Microsoft Office

Google believes that a healthy ecosystem is important to the future
development and adoption of the Internet and of technology. There are
many products on the market — from companies large and small — that
have been developed to address a broad range of user needs, and
ultimately, this drives innovation that is good for users. People use Web-
based applications because they want to share their information online
with others and they want access to that information from anywhere. With
Google Docs & Spreadsheets, we are focused on providing users with
another way to create and share their own information easily on the Web.

4. Further consolidation with other products and features to create a
fuller package

Again, we’re focused solely on creating the best possible experience for
Google Docs & Spreadsheets users. We’ll evaluate user feedback over time and determine when it makes sense to integrate other products.

Now all we need is our own robot to turn it back into English…