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Aside from the good collection of formulas, statistical and analysis tools are missing. There are no pivot tables.
If you're accustomed to using the right mouse button in Excel to access cell-specific options, you might not be as productive in Google Spreadsheets, since it has no right-mouse options.
(Click to enlarge)
While the real-time collaboration and chat feature is very cool, it could get confusing with more than two people, because changes made to the spreadsheet are not marked with the person making them.
The lowdown
I'd recommend this service for the new spreadsheet user or the person who just wants to work with numbers or small data tables from time to time. It has functionality most people need, except the critical graphing and printing functions. The collaboration features are just dynamite.
However, Google Spreadsheets takes you only part of the way if you want to use it for serious analysis or as a tool to create graphics for presentations.
Google PR reps were clear to note that this product is a beta, and an early one at that, so we might see many of the shortcomings addressed soon. Hopefully, they'll be fixed before the product is released into open beta. Google would not give a time frame for that, though.
While you wait, if you are sold or you're just curious about online spreadsheets, you owe it to yourself to also check out suites from ThinkFree, and Zoho, and the stand-alone online spreadsheets EditGrid, iRows, and Num Sum.
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