At the April 12 ‘Atmosphere 2010’ cloud computing event at its Mountain View, California, headquarters, Google announced the upgrade of Google Docs with a new JavaScript layout engine and HTML5 – a move that will intensify the company’s competition against Microsoft.

According to Google, it has upgraded its online package of word processing and spreadsheet programs in an attempt to enhance and accelerate the document, drawing and spreadsheet editors in Docs – thereby making its Docs messaging and collaboration tools increasingly suitable for the present-day office workers, who are mostly familiar with Microsoft Office and IBM Lotus applications.

In addition to the Google Docs revisions, Google also announced that temporary removal of its Google Gears offline support for Docs from May 3 – so as to improve Google’s offline functionality with more modern, HTML5-based Web browser technologies.

At the Google ‘Atmosphere’ event, which hosted nearly managers from as many as 400 technology firms, the company largely promoted the advantages of cloud computing – urging users to reach the Google programs over the Internet.

In a question-and-answer session at the end of the event, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt specified that the company’s online suite will provide nearly 80 percent of all the tools that are currently available in more established programs such as Office, and said: “Our applications aren't full replacements for the incumbents.”