"Collaboration is a killer app for how communities work," Schmidt said in his keynote presentation at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. His presentation was made using Presently, the new software designed to enable presentations to be made and shared over the Web.

The software essentially fills out Google's online package of Microsoft Office-like applications. The package of apps, called Docs & Spreadsheet, is free and can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection. The apps enable users to save files locally to their computers or upload them to the Web and work collaboratively with other users.

No Release Date

No formal release date for Presently was given, although Schmidt indicated the software would debut soon. Google already has released a word processor, Writerly; an Excel-like program called Google Spreadsheets; and an e-mail service called Gmail. Separately, the company also offers Google Calendar, Google Talk, and Page Creator.

Schmidt denied the comparison between Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Microsoft Office. "It doesn't have all the functionality, nor will it ever have all the functionality, of products like Microsoft Office," he reportedly said at the conference.

On the same day that Google was presenting Presently, the Google blog was announcing that the company had acquired Tonic Systems, a company based in San Francisco and Melbourne, Australia. Sam Schillace, Google Engineering Director, wrote in a blog that Tonic has "some great technology" for presentation creation and document conversion.

"We've already freed those of you working in teams from the burdens of version control and e-mail attachment overload when going back and forth on word processing and spreadsheets," he wrote. "It just made sense to add presentations to the mix; after all, when you create slides, you're almost always going to share them."

Challenging Microsoft

Google is "obviously filling out a Web-based suite" that competes in some ways with Microsoft, said Rita Knox, a vice president at industry research firm Gartner. "Where Google is challenging Microsoft," she said, "is in creating this Web-based environment."

She said that Google was most likely going after "all the opportunities that haven't happened yet," such as those users in developing countries who aren't veteran Microsoft Office users. The online apps might also appeal to newer, smaller businesses, she said, where younger workers are more accustomed to wikis and other collaborative environments.

In addition to introducing Presently, Schmidt discussed Google's $3.1 billion acquisition of Internet ad agency DoubleClick, announced on Friday. Microsoft and AT&T have asked regulators to look at the deal in terms of antitrust implications because Google already has a large Internet advertising business.

Schmidt dismissed the concerns, saying that advertising is a "trillion dollar business and this is one percent of that."