Google, the internet search and advertising specialist, will today introduce a web-based spreadsheet program in an attempt to muscle in on a market long dominated by Microsoft, the world’s largest software developer.

A preview of the new product is available here.

The new product will be launched on Google Labs – the company’s "technology playground". The company said the application had been designed "for users who create basic spreadsheets that need to be shared or updated by several contributors".

It will initially be launched in the US in English only and on a limited basis, Google said. The company later plans to roll it out to other territories.

It added: "It's a free, secure service that will save people the hassle of manually consolidating spreadsheets from others – a tedious and mind-numbing task. Google Spreadsheets is a Google Labs product with limited availability during the first few months."

Google’s online spreadsheet will offer consumers and businesses a free alternative to Microsoft’s Excel application – typically sold as part of the Microsoft’s Office software suite.

Microsoft is planning its own web-based products – where users access application online rather than downloading the to a computer’s hard disk – under its own set of Windows Live offerings.

The move has been characterised by Microsoft executives as their company’s most significant shift in strategy in a decade.

"The real interest, of course, comes from the combination of online services that Google could offer as an alternative to Microsoft," the Businessreviewonline blog said

However, the Google spreadsheet will not be as sophisticated as Excel. It will not, for instance, create charts or provide a menu of controls called up by clicking on a computer mouse’s right-hand button.

Jonathan Rochelle, Google’s product manager for the new application, said the Google spreadsheet has been designed to make it easier for family, friends or co-workers to gain access to the same spreadsheet from different computers at different times, enabling a group of authorized users to add and edit data without having to e-mail attachments back and forth.

"We are totally focused on the sharing aspect," he said.

The spreadsheet represents Google’s latest software application to be delivered via the web. Google acquired an online word processing application called Writely in March and rolled out a calendar service shortly afterwards.

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