Harmony lets you share Google Docs in Outlook

While Google was purchasing DocVerse [1] this week, Mainsoft [2] was releasing a free Beta that lets you access and share Google Docs [3] documents from within Outlook. The tool isn't from Microsoft [4], but it does put Google Docs users back in the Microsoft ecosystem, so I'm sure it's a tool that must at least make the folks in Redmond smile, especially in light of Google's recent actions.

In addition, users can also access documents found within Microsoft SharePoint [5] from the Harmony pane. It enables users to share a single copy of the document instead of sending attachments to emails, and ensures that participants should have the most up-to-date copy of the document.

Since many business users spend a great deal of their day inside Outlook, this tool could be very useful. After you install Harmony, it creates a new pane in Outlook.

Matt Cain, research vice president and Gartner [6]’s lead email analyst, thinks this tool provides users with a key function that's been missing from email. "We believe the ultimate role of the email client is to aggregate communication and collaboration streams from many modalities into one common interface. In this way, the email client becomes the communication and collaboration master console--a universal queue, so to speak."

Harmony should provide a way to access documents from Google and SharePoint, providing users with a useful service for no cost. At the very least, it's certainly worth trying out and seeing if it works for your organization.

For more information:
- see the Mainsoft press release [7]

Related Articles:
Google sticks it to Microsoft with DocVerse purchase [1]
Google to begin opening up Google Wave for testing [8]
Can Microsoft dominate web-based applications? [9]
Microsoft to open Outlook data format [10]