According to reports from the Web 2.0 Expo, namely TechCrunch and Mashable, Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, has just announced the next product in Google’s office suite, a presentation tool which is basically an online equivalent of Microsoft’s Powerpoint.

Since Powerpoint is not nearly as complex as Word or Excel, one wonders why haven’t they done it before, especially since many users only use Powerpoint’s most basic features, which could easily be replicated (maybe even bested) in a lightweight, online tool. In any case, the tool is still not live anywhere on the web, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

*Update: Google didn’t build the technology for presentations from the ground up, which is revealed by Schmidt’s announcement of their latest acquisition - Tonic Systems, a company which does, you guessed it, presentations, as well as document conversions.