Office Tools On The Web

ReadWriteWeb writes "What will be the primary elements of an Office Suite for the Web be? Who among the big or small companies is currently providing the best examples? ZDNet's Richard MacManus reviews the contenders for collaborative Web Office tools. Some of these products may well be acquisition targets this year for Microsoft and Google, as it is anticipated that both companies will release fully functional Web Office Suites sometime in the next few years."

Comments

Am I behind?

[MrNougat]

Because I haven't heard of any of these things. Seems like if you want to contend with MS Office, you're going to need to get more notariety.

Re:Am I behind?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that you have heard of it, go show somebody else. It's the only way for tools without a huge marketing budget to get well-known. Don't all these new technologies trickle down to the majority of people through technophiles like the /. community anyway?

Re:Am I behind?

[MrNougat]

Oh, I'll definitely check them out now that I have heard of them. I guess I just think it's a bit early in the game to be shouting the praises of web office tools as though they're going to take over the business market this year.

Maybe I'll end up eating my hat on that last statement, but there you have it.

Re:Am I behind?

[Tackhead]

> Because I haven't heard of any of these things. Seems like if you want to contend with MS Office, you're going to need to get more notariety.

It looks like you are trying to contend with MS Office. Would you like some notoriety?

• Sell your company to Microsoft?
• Sell your company to Google?
• Throw a chair?
• Email a copy of hello.jpg to a venture capital firm, and don't show me this tip again.

Re:Am I behind?

[Anonymous Coward]

In all probability, they're not going to take over the business market this year, but I don't think that's a flaw of the tools themselves. Nobody's been able to unseat Microsoft, even with superior software. But if we don't start talking about all this new technology it'll never have a chance. Make it well known and if enough people think it's worth it to switch over from MS Office then they will. If nobody knows about it it doesn't matter how good it is. It'll never get off the ground.

Re:Am I behind?

[frisket]

Are you behind? Perhaps.

Just one word: wikicalc

Re:Am I behind?

[generic-man]

Alpha is the new beta, I see. Call me back in 2010 when wikiCalc actually considers itself ready for production use.

Re:Am I behind?

[ImaLamer]

Looking at your user id I'd say you are behind.

(Not that mine is that low either, just pointing that out)

This is obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsofts product will be bloated, proprietary, and prone to crashes for years.

Googles product will be minimalist, open, and in beta for years.

Re:This is obvious

[commodoresloat]

And both will save all your data in a searchable database for centuries.

Re:This is obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Must say, Google's might be free (as beer/adware) but I doubt it will be open - at least based on their previous track record.

Re:This is obvious

[javachip]

And both will save all your data in a searchable database for centuries.

But only by Big Brother, both of the Governmental and Corporate varieties. For the rest of us, the formats will die a quick and seemingly painless death as new products replace them.

Re:This is obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you narrow down the crash aspect:
1) Browser (Internet Exp.)
2) Office suite
3) Operating System

Re:This is obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

All of the above.

I'd say more like

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to contend with MS Office, you need an interface which runs at full speed as if it were a normal program on a modern computer*, and which doesn't magically disappear when (1) you accidentally close a tab or (2) some rogue flash app crashes the browser.

Anyone else remember WordPerfect for Java?

* No, AJAX is *NOT* good enough. It's fine for email. It's not good enough for anything else.

Re:I'd say more like

[AKAImBatman]

* No, AJAX is *NOT* good enough. It's fine for email. It's not good enough for anything else.

AJAX/DHTML is good enough. It's the programmers that aren't. Most of these "Web Office" products are really nothing more than beautified HTML Editor components disguised as something we haven't seen before. The types of features that make a Word Processor a real Word Processor are missing because no one else has done the work for them. Not to mention the lack of spreadsheets, presentation software, and database interfaces.

I don't know when it's going to percolate through the industry that you have to actually do a lot of work to be a leader and make money. If you just slap stuff together off the shelf, your competitors will be able to follow. Then while you're all arguing, a REAL company will pay talented professionals to develop software that actually meets the needs of customers.

Anyone else remember WordPerfect for Java?

Yeah, I remember. I also remember that it was badly planned from the get-go. If Corel had been really trying, they wouldn't have released a suite as a set of Applets. ThinkFree came along a few years later and showed that it was quite doable to replicate MS Office in Java.

Re:I'd say more like

[generic-man]

I find it completely insane that people consider Firefox, a browser where memory leaks are classified as "features," to be a viable application deployment platform. A web browser is only as strong as its weakest open window. The vast majority of browsers-with-no-extensions-installed have no protection against crashes at all. The only cure to this problem is auto-saving of documents.

Linux, Mac OS X, and even recent Windows releases are actually quite stable if you use good drivers. Why tie an important application to the weakest link in any system (the network) and a foundation that was clearly not made to handle such demands (a web browser)?

Re:I'd say more like

[flyingsquid]

Anyone else remember the whole "Network Computer" concept of having a stripped-down machine that accessed applications and documents from a central server? This strikes me as somewhat similar in intent, the idea to have your PC do less and a server on the other end do more. And if the network computer concept is any indication, it's going to be equally doomed to failure.

Re:I'd say more like

[stupidfoo]

The Network is the Computer(TM)

Re:I'd say more like

[AKAImBatman]

Why tie an important application to the weakest link in any system (the network) and a foundation that was clearly not made to handle such demands (a web browser)?

1. Because tying your applications to the network affords a great number of features that can't exist (or exist poorly) in disparate systems. Such features include: centralized storage, powerful document search engines, automatic document sharing, application availability from any location, and protection against massive data loss through the failure of a client machine.

2. Modern Web Browsers actually are designed as application platforms. They have been since the days of Netscape 4. They just haven't been all that good at it until recently.

Re:I'd say more like

[jacksonj04]

See http://www.writely.com/.

Fast. Efficient. Saves regularly. Beta, but mostly solid and constantly improving.

Re:I'd say more like

[AKAImBatman]

Anyone else remember the whole "Network Computer" concept of having a stripped-down machine that accessed applications and documents from a central server?

I do, but I'd have a hard time classifying them as "stripped down". ;-)

Re:I'd say more like

[abes]

I have to completely and utterly disagree with you. Web pages are not the best place for web apps, nor will they ever be. And why should they? Web pages were meant for displaying originally static text. The fact that it can be made dynamic, is an add-on, rather than a thought out plan. AJAX/DHTML come off more as a kludge than anything else.

You want systems that were made for complex user interface tasks? Try .net, Cocoa, GTK, or QT. There's a lot of work put in to those libraries. Unless you think those libraries are all fluff, then I'm not sure how you get from href's and text to something as complex as an office suite. And it is complex. If it weren't, M$ office wouldn't have the hold it does.

If you want a simple text editor that can do minimal tasks, sure, web interfaces are *okay*. But compare that to something like abiword, which is still free (or openoffice, if you want), and they *still* can't compare.

Why even try to do a web office suite? To make it cross platformable? Once again, abiword and openoffice have this covered. Remember, the internet consists of more than just webpages. There's lot of ways of transporting data. If you want something that can run anywhere, a solid crossplatform library should be used. QT and GTK are two good examples of this.

Re:I'd say more like

[AKAImBatman]

Do me a favor, will you? Go to this link and click on the word "Lemmings" to the right of the picture. This should pop up a game window of Lemmings. Once you've played for a few minutes to get a feel for it, try to figure out what technologies it uses. When you think you know, come back here and we'll discuss your answers and how possible a full Office Suite is in DHTML/AJAX.

Re:I'd say more like

[generic-man]

1. Unless you're willing to spend $700 per employee per year on Verizon Wireless data subscriptions, "application availability from any location" is not true. I'll stick with my laptop which I back up weekly and can use without an Internet connection.
2. Open two Firefox windows: one with your really important document and one with a page that crashes Firefox. (I recommend a myspace profile with Adblock and Flashblock turned completely off.) Poof: no more important document editing for you. As an alternative, turn back the clock 10+ years to when "Crash Protection" was an awesome feature in such new operating systems as OS/2 2.0. When will someone invent the world's first crash-protected web browser? (Hint: Double-click that IE icon on your Windows desktop three times, crash one of the instances, and notice that the other two still work.)

Re:I'd say more like

[generic-man]

You can get Lemmings for the Game Boy. By your logic, that means that an office suite should run on the Game Boy as well.

(I wonder how OpenOffice.org for Game Boy Advance Linux is coming along...)

Re:I'd say more like

[drinkypoo]

I find it completely insane that in your criticism of Firefox's so-called memory leak you actually link to the page that explains why it's not a memory leak. Set browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers to something other than -1 and less than 8 and the number of pages cached will decrease - if you have a gig of memory. With 512MB, you have to set it to less than 5 to make a difference, and so on - which is all explained in your very own link.

Why tie an important application to the weakest link in any system (the network) and a foundation that was clearly not made to handle such demands (a web browser)?

Well, for one, because the auto-saving of documents is an entirely reasonable thing to do, and more to the point, it's one that was basically never done on the web in the pre-AJAX world. It's been possible as long as there's been Javascript, frames, and DOM, because you could snag the contents of a textarea every so often (on a timer) and use another frame to submit another form in order to save the contents... But I've never seen it done on the web until google did it. That probably means I need to surf more, but nonetheless, it's not like it was common...

For another, for many of us, our computers are close to useless unless we have internet access anyway. Sure, you can create new content, but you can't send the digital form off without the network anyway. You can also still develop new content in some other application and import it later, but I agree that it's kind of silly.

The biggest draw is having access to your applications and your data no matter where you are. That's a pretty compelling reason to deal with this stuff.

Re:I'd say more like

[Ford Prefect]

What, you mean a multi-gigahertz monster can perform a similar task to my 8MHz, half-megabyte Atari ST of years gone by?

Wait, I know - let's try some basic page layout tasks like drawing lines and ellipses. My Atari ST could manage that (it could also do full WYSIWYG with TrueType fonts rotated to arbitrary angles, bezier curves and assorted other vector type stuff) - it's a bit harder in DHTML/AJAX without SVG, which is admittedly very promising but still a bit ... experimental.

DHTML/AJAX might have brightened up previously dismal, static websites no end, but they results are still not up to the standard of software running natively. Compare Google Maps with Google Earth, Gmail with Mail.app, Flikr with iPhoto, one of the aforementioned web office tools with, ooh, Adobe inDesign or something like that.

Re:I'd say more like

[AKAImBatman]

By your logic, that means that an office suite should run on the Game Boy as well.

You see a problem with this? The Gameboy has the necessary processor and graphics hardware. What it's lacking (which AJAX/DHTML *do* have) is the proper input devices. Without proper I/O devices, making an Office Suite would be pointless. It's simply too tedious to interface with the device.

If you had your eyes open, you should now realize that there's no technical reason why a proper Office Suite cannot be done in AJAX/DHTML. None at all. Your ravings about "kludges" haven't been true since the DOM was made into a proper standard. The fact that most people don't know how to use the DOM is no reason to claim that it won't work. In fact, most of the resistence to AJAX applications has come from the camps who've never done a proper DOM program in their life. If they're lucky, they know that the standard exists. The fact that the standard covers everything from pixel perfect layout to a proper event model just happens to escape their notice.

Re:I'd say more like

[AKAImBatman]

it's a bit harder in DHTML/AJAX without SVG

Why do you think I (and others) have been screaming for SVG? It's the final piece of the puzzle that will allow us to get rid of the last kludge in the stack. (i.e. Server generated images.) With Opera and Mozilla working to make SVG a required part of the browser, the future looks very bright indeed. :-)

Re:I'd say more like

[AKAImBatman]

Unless you're willing to spend $700 per employee per year on Verizon Wireless data subscriptions, "application availability from any location" is not true.

I'll take HTA for $500, Alex.

# Open two Firefox windows: one with your really important document and one with a page that crashes Firefox. Poof: no more important document editing for you.

I just tried it with GMail. My document was still under the drafts label when I reopened the application. Who'd have thunk that designers could account for crashes, eh?

Re:I'd say more like

[John Hurliman]

Most document editors have an Autosave feature that saves open documents every couple minutes or so to protect against system failures. An AJAX application can save as often as every keystroke if you like, or to combat bandwidth concerns every other sentence would be perfectly fine. The only "instability" you've pointed to is the aggressive memory allocation system in Firefox, that you can turn off if your browsing habits are different than most people. Storing a back/forward page cache doesn't make the platform more stable, it just makes it faster at the expense of more RAM usage. And can you point out an AJAX application that crashes IE or Firefox? And even when worst comes to worst, you have the redundancy of AJAX applications syncing early and often with the server to resume exactly where you were when you log back in.

Re:I'd say more like

[generic-man]

HTA? HTML Applications (that run locally on your machine)? Health Technology Assessment? Horticultural Trades Association? If you know how to get Internet connectivity for $500 a year you have to tell me.

Re:I'd say more like

[Skreems]

It's worth noting that not all applications of an Office suite lend themselves as much to auto-saving as a 300 byte email draft. You're going to start running into bandwidth problems when you have enough users editing documents that are a few pages long, and good luck trying to auto-save a novel every 3 minutes while 2000 other users are also working with the application.

Re:I'd say more like

[AKAImBatman]

You sir, would fail your software engineering courses with thinking like that. (Not to mention a Computer Science degree for failing to follow data structures.)

Here's a hint for you: Every action performed by the user can be recorded as an atomic event. If those atomic events are saved, packaged up, and sent to the server at regular intervals, the server side copy could be kept up to date with a minimal amount of bandwidth.

Now, consider for a moment: How does MS Office save it's files so much faster than OpenOffice? Here's a hint. It records atomic updates...

Re:I'd say more like

[damiena]

I have to completely and utterly disagree with you. Computers are not the best place for videos and gaming, nor will they ever be. And why should they? Computers were meant for displaying originally static text. The fact that it can be made dynamic, is an add-on, rather than a thought out plan. VGA come off more as a kludge than anything else.

Re:I'd say more like

[generic-man]

How does OpenOffice save its files so much faster than JavaScriptOffice? It uses fantastic technology known as the local hard drive. It really is fantastic. The best part is that when my local hard drive dies, my data doesn't die with it; I back up my hard drive regularly.

Once again, no network-based version of Office will ever take off so long as you need to maintain an Internet connection at all times. Why should I be sitting on a plane* unable to compose a letter to grandma because the JavaScriptOffice server isn't accessible?

* Not a Lufthansa or ANA plane, where they offer inflight wifi for $30+/flight

Re:I'd say more like

[generic-man]

There are better languages than JavaScript. Stop with this AJAX/DHTML buzzword wankery. You're talking about rewriting an office suite, an enormous platform used by millions of people daily to integrate with all order of business practices and third-party applications, in JavaScript. You're talking about running this business-critical application in a web browser, a program which is so hyperextended that even "good" browsers crash and burn under the weight of 10-year-old bugs.

I really think you need to buddy up with someone who uses an office suite on a daily basis. I've used spreadsheets since the days of Lotus 1-2-3 and there isn't a web browser in this world I would trust to be any faster or more reliable than a 386 running 1-2-3 in DOS.

You haven't shown that JavaScriptOffice would be any cheaper for mobile access ($500+ per year for an internet connection just so you can edit static documents wherever you go? MS Office is cheaper than that). You have only shown me that JavaScript can be used to do all sorts of distracting shit in a web browser -- good for you. Oh, it supports keyboard shortcuts sometimes! Fantastic. Tell me, when does it support automation? How about JavaScriptOffice interoperability with third-party products using a published API? How long is it going to take for JavaScriptOffice to match even one tiny portion of Microsoft Office's functionality?

I can tell that you're getting ready to blogback your flashpost to your delicious, and so all I can say to the Web 2.0 master is: won't you think of the wikiwikiediting?

(End of JavaScript love-fest thread; it's been a pleasure.)

Re:I'd say more like

[AKAImBatman]

How does OpenOffice save its files so much faster than JavaScriptOffice? It uses fantastic technology known as the local hard drive.

You, sir, have failed it. Given that OOo does a COMPLETE save to disk every time it saves a file, JavaScriptOffice (assuming it sent updates in a fashion similar to what I described) would be WAY faster than OOo.

Once again, no network-based version of Office will ever take off so long as you need to maintain an Internet connection at all times. Why should I be sitting on a plane* unable to compose a letter to grandma because the JavaScriptOffice server isn't accessible?

Did you figure out HTAs yet? Let me know when you hear that popping noise.

Re:I'd say more like

[AKAImBatman]

There are better languages than JavaScript. Stop with this AJAX/DHTML buzzword wankery.

Such as? Name a single language that is ubiquitous as JavaScript, runs in all W3C compliant web browsers, and can provide the features we've been discussing?

I'll save you the trouble: You can't. JavaScript sucks sometimes, but it's the only language we have available to meet the needs of Web Applications. And make no mistake, AJAX may be a buzzword for XMLHttpRequest, but DHTML is not a buzzword. It is a very real technology with very real applications. If you want to make a lot of money as an expert in up to date technologies, you'd be wise to learn it now.

$500+ per year for an internet connection just so you can edit static documents wherever you go? MS Office is cheaper than that

Not a fan of Jeopardy, I take it?

Oh, it supports keyboard shortcuts sometimes!

Sometimes?

Fantastic. Tell me, when does it support automation?

As soon as someone writes it into the software. Why? Do you think that JavaScript is somehow turing incomplete?

How about JavaScriptOffice interoperability with third-party products using a published API?

Geez, couldn't you have picked something a little harder? Plugins can easily be added through dynamically loaded JavaScript, server side updates, or a combination there of.

How long is it going to take for JavaScriptOffice to match even one tiny portion of Microsoft Office's functionality?

Well, that depends on how long it takes them to program it, which is usually a function of how much money is sunk into it.

(End of JavaScript love-fest thread; it's been a pleasure.)

I really wish I could reciprocate, but your poor understanding of the platform combined with your poor technical ability and lack of imagination has made it more frustrating than profitable. Please come back when you have something more vague to argue than "it won't work."

Re:I'd say more like

[AKAImBatman]

something more vague to argue than "it won't work

*cough* "something less vague"

Apologies for the error. We're already well aware that you can do vague.

Re:I'd say more like

[generic-man]

What's an HTA?

--- Original Message ---
Re:I'd say more like
  (Score:1)
by AKAImBatman (238306) on 08:01 AM February 22nd, 2006 (#14775719)
(http://akaimbatman.blogspot.com/)
How does OpenOffice save its files so much faster than JavaScriptOffice? It uses fantastic technology known as the local hard drive.

You, sir, have failed it. Given that OOo does a COMPLETE save to disk every time it saves a file, JavaScriptOffice (assuming it sent updates in a fashion similar to what I described) would be WAY faster than OOo.

Once again, no network-based version of Office will ever take off so long as you need to maintain an Internet connection at all times. Why should I be sitting on a plane* unable to compose a letter to grandma because the JavaScriptOffice server isn't accessible?

Did you figure out HTAs yet? Let me know when you hear that popping noise.

Re:I'd say more like

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera handles crashes pretty well. It keeps an autosave of your current session. Sometimes it forgets one or two, mainly just the latest thing you loaded (which is usually the thing that caused the crash anyway...)

Re:I'd say more like

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, computers were made to be general purpose and do about anything. They were, admitedly, intended to be used for business purposes, but, since they were designed with such capabilities in mind, it turns out they do games quite well. Things like soundcards and video acceleration may have been intended originally so voice synthesis and accelerating graphics design, but, they too adapt quite nicely to gaming as well. Overall, the "PC" is actually better for gaming not due to it's processors that adapt better to branching than to repetitive SIMDs, nor for it's ability to produce a wave-form across multiple channels, but, for it's expandability, which is what the others lacked when the systems started doing this.

Re:I'd say more like

[AKAImBatman]

HTML Application. It allows the Webapp to run even when you're not connected. Currently this is Microsoft specific (though the same thing can be achieved with most other browsers through downloadable HTML files), but there is a rough standard that's being worked on to make it available across all browsers and platforms.

An HTA application can continue to allow someone to work (caching the necessary files on disk, and saving updates to disk) until the next time a network connection is made. Then it can shunt the data to the server as if nothing happened.

Re:I'd say more like

[generic-man]

That would be cool. I look forward to the days of cacheable applications that, like mail clients and other such applications, can "go online." Too bad Microsoft has to lead the way yet again...

Oh Please!

[mpapet]

Let's check the facts:

Microsoft has a VERY large and very well-developed office suite that connects quite elegantly to a bunch of Microsoft's back office software.

So these start-ups are going to usurp that somehow?

Also, some people love to lease cars, but when it comes to software, I don't see it happening so much.

What they may do is fill some very small gap.

Re:Oh Please!

[garcia]

What they may do is fill some very small gap.

Depends on what Microsoft's strategy is at the time. We are talking "a few years down the road" right? Perhaps MSFT goes for all online with a subscription based model (not all that different from their licenses now -- just more profitable for them because it removes some of the Warezing capabilities) and people get pissed off and want something else (either physical or free).

I don't believe that there are any viable alternatives, for the business world, other than MSFT Office products but that could all change. Just like it did for Lotus and WordPerfect.

Re:Oh Please!

[generic-man]

Web 2.0 business plan

1. Rewrite native application in JavaScript
2. ???
3. Profit!

Re:Oh Please!

[caffeinemessiah]

I partially agree with you. I think initially non-geek people are going to be very skeptical about using an online office suite. I can easily hear complaints like "my documents are stored where?" and "what if I'm not connected to the Internet, as in on a plane?". These objections can all easily be overcome, but not without some hacking and patching. The classic app of a laptop on a plane (and lets just ignore the wifi on some airlines for now) would require users to check out online documents to work offline, and I'm pretty sure that there's no way in hell the average business user is going to want to learn an essentially CVS-like system to work on his spreadsheets.

Let's not forget that the average office user barely know a fraction of office suite functionality. They're not going to be jumping with joy to learn the mechanics of a new, possibly complicated (to them) system. Try explaining that you're using the web as a shared hard drive and watch eyebrows lift.

HOWEVER, if a startup finds a way to quickly and easily integrate existing office suites with some sort of online tool (something more intuitive and seamless than the current Sharepoint, you M$ lovers), I could easily see a small startup make a killing. The group, not necessarily the largest one, that streamlines the process and flattens the learning curve will be the winner in this game.

Re:Oh Please!

[stupidfoo]

2. Make them available online for free!

Re:Oh Please!

[iamwhatiseem]

Let's check some other facts: Most people still use Office 2000, many others still use Office 98. People are finally aware there is NO reason to upgrade, when at least 99% of users can do everything in the "latest" office suite as they did 15 years ago with Word and excel 95. People type letters and memos and simple spreadsheets, anything more - they have a business system to do it. I hope you are joking about people not wanting to "lease" software - this is becoming the industry standard for a BUNCH of systems. Screw the dongles and client installed apps, web based systems are far, far better. Two of our main business and supply tracking software is web-based - both are "pay as you upgrade" systems, you lay out less cash up front (way less) and pay yearly upgrade fees that are much more manageable. I say - the more of this stuff the better!

Re:Oh Please!

[generic-man]

Oh boy! Beta! Now the company can be both unprofitable and can wash its hands of liability if anything bad happens!

Re:Oh Please!

[westlake]

Microsoft has a VERY large and very well-developed office suite that connects quite elegantly to a bunch of Microsoft's back office software.

not to mention the ungodly number of third-party apps that are designed to work with Office and share a common look and feel.

Re:Oh Please!

[kfg]

"my documents are stored where?" and "what if I'm not connected to the Internet, as in on a plane?". These objections can all easily be overcome, but not without some hacking and patching.

The fact that your data resides on a foreign server cannot be easily overcome with hacking and patching. It simply declares a field day for the SEC and the FBI, even with encryption.

Why on earth should I "Pull a Tom Horn" and braid my own noose? Yes, online apps could prove a convenience, but Federal Pound me in the Ass Prison can prove a distinct inconvenience that overrides.

KFG

Re:Oh Please!

[Wylfing]

Let's check the facts:

Microsoft has a VERY large and very well-developed office suite that connects quite elegantly to a bunch of Microsoft's back office software.

What [these office suites] may do is fill some very small gap.

You are assuming an enterprise-level point of view. That is only roughly half of business sales for Microsoft. A big segment, sure, but what of the other half, the small businesses, who don't have any back office kit to connect with? They don't fret over Exchange connectivity, because they don't run Exchange, or any other major server software, Microsoft or otherwise. Web-based office suites are perfect for them.

I know, because I am a small business owner, and I am watching this stuff develop with a keen eye. Right now, it's all about matching MS Office functionality (or at least what 95% of users actually use, which isn't that much). But think of getting wiki in there for team collaboration, RSS feeds for project updates, Google-searching your past worklog, and making it all 100% portable and platform-independent so that it no longer matters where employees are or what equipment they are using -- everybody can always get their work done. To me that sounds highly appealing.

Re:Oh Please!

[snitmo]

> Microsoft has a VERY large and very well-developed office suite that connects quite elegantly to a bunch of Microsoft's back office software.

So what? MS Office is expensive and is a hell to use. Gives me all the strange automation stuff and doesn't let me turn it off. Slow. Format changes every couple of years. Too many buttons which change locations. I hate Office. If you are happy with Office, good for you, but I welcome whatever changes possible. Be it OpenOffice, be it web apps, I don't care. If the startups keep reinventing the wheel, eventually they'll come up with something good.

Re:Oh Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good question,

They can build it upon user tools (MSOffice converted to OpenDocument via Docvert) and they can compete on costs (Microsoft server-side stuff vs Open Source). And they can deal with scenarios that Microsoft doesn't touch, like single-source publishing to XHTML, PDF, etc. Easier integration with CRM because the open standards are more parsable than Microsoft's formats.

Microsoft's one still needs really good system admins to keep it going, the opensource one needs programmers who know XML integration (XSLT, FO or other syntaxes for PDF, CRM SOAP interfaces) but allows much more flexibility. As for the costs of each, I have my opinions and you should do your own research :)

Re:Oh Please!

[notaprguy]

Ok, I'll bite. The current Sharepoint is pretty clunky. I should know as I use it every day. Sharepoint in Office 12/2007 is greatly improved - I've seen it demoed (real code, not vaporware). One of the features that will enable some of the scenarios people are talking about in this thread is really good offline document support. One of the big problems with Sharepoint now is that it's pretty good for storing documents but you can only access them when you're (1) online and (2) have access to the network where the Sharepoint sits. With Sharepoint 12 you can take document libraries offline and sync when you're back on the network. Pretty cool. That doesn't mean that I want a Web-based tool/app for document creation. All of the examples mentioned in the ZDNET article are pale imitations of good old fashioned Windows or Mac applications. For regular users of Word or PPT or Excel or Outlook or the non-MSFT versions will never (well, never say never but...) be willing to use web based versions for every day use.

Re:Oh Please!

[OneSeventeen]

Let's check the facts:
Microsoft has a VERY large and very well-developed office suite that connects quite elegantly to a bunch of Microsoft's back office software.
So these start-ups are going to usurp that somehow?
Also, some people love to lease cars, but when it comes to software, I don't see it happening so much.
What they may do is fill some very small gap.

Microsoft has shown us in the past that they feel they are such a monolithic application vendor that all they need to do to retain customers is release software patches between software versions, with no real innovation at any point. So the chances of someone beating them to the web market is great, but you're right, that still doesn't mean Web based solutions will usurp that.

As of now, Microsoft is in the business of vendor lock-in. If a web application came out that would run on everyone's operating system and would create files usable by everyone, all without installing a single piece of software other than your web browser, I think this would be very attractive to a wide range of individuals. IT managers would enjoy the fact that all of their users could upgrade software by clicking "refresh" and everyone would have all of the tools everyone else has (assuming licensing doesn't get in the way). Moms would like it because they can use simple software designed to be easy to use and easy to install. Geeks would like it because its geeky, and updates would be a non-issue. And average end-users in an office settings wouldn't notice much of a difference.

I am also assuming that the web office suite would be open and free. If the Microsoft approach were taken, it probably wouldn't be attractive, other than they could offer limited features on the web, and have an easy "buy now" option for the full version.

Personally, as an individual who has done tech support for quite a few years, and is now going more towards development and graphic design, I am glad to get away from the "well-developed" office suite that accounts for 20% of the support issues I've had to deal with in the past. In fact, although I'm in an all-microsoft shop, I switched to linux and OpenOffice about 2 and a half months ago, and nobody has noticed yet!

In the end, there aren't many reasons a consumer, an IT manager, nor your average geek, would say no to a web-based office suite. Especially if they had a version that could run on local servers with minimal setup (for security purposes at large organizations, and for speed increases by running from localhost).

I'm avoiding the "well developed" portion of your comment because YMMV. I will say that people like to lease cars, and for some reason they already do lease software. As of now, I have to call and ask politely to get Microsoft to activate Windows XP when I reinstall it. By reading the EULA, I also found that I can't modify the software, nor can I give it away to friends and family. Software is "licensed" (similar enough to leased) from Microsoft. Open Source alternatives usually mean you "own" the software. If you want to resell it, resell it, if you want to copy it and share it, then fine. If you want to modify it to fit your needs, by all means. (This doesn't really apply to this topic, but I couldn't resist, as most closed-source software is licensed, and I'm sure the web apps could be easily installed with a small pre-packaged LAMP installation that is transparent to the end user.)

Re:Oh Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot OpenOffice.org. Some will argue that it's a little clunky, but, I know it runs smoothly on my system (then again, I'm not an author and only just do little case documents with no need for 600 page novels.) I have to admit, I hadn't noticed it was saving the full document at once since it's nearly instant on my system anyway. What's more, unlike Microsoft, you aren't required to spend $100+ on the operating system you must use to operate the software then 300+ or whatever Office is costing these days just for the software you'll be using to type it all. Overall, it's a very production-level software suite, just not quite as fast and efficient as, say, Office '97. Then again, on modern systems, it's kind of hard to tell the difference. Or, for that matter, on many old ones (runs smoothly enough for me on my old P3-500 SMP system.) Anyway, the point is just that there are non-Microsoft products that compete quite nicely and show us that it can be done.

Dark Fiber...

[__aaclcg7560]

Is this a Microsoft Office conspiracy to shove bandwidth-eating applications down the pipe to force companies to upgrade their networks and raise the price on all that unused dark fiber? Inquiring minds want to know!

Re:Dark Fiber...

[amberp]

But it is Google, who is continuing to buy the Dark Fiber.

Avalon Business Systems

[Johnso]

I've mentioned them before, but I'm still impressed by the Avalon Management Suite by Avalon Business Systems.

It's a web-based (AJAX?) management tool that my company uses to handle our scheduling, inventory, invoicing, CRM, etc. It's really slick, but useful (it reminds me a lot of GMail).

Really, web services like Avalon, GMail, and Flickr are coming along nicely. It's a lot nicer to be able to access your data and tools from anywhere than it would be to have to install software on a dozen computers.

Re:Avalon Business Systems

[jlarocco]

It's a lot nicer to be able to access your data and tools from anywhere than it would be to have to install software on a dozen computers.

I'm sure it's great, but what does it offer that I can't get with a laptop?

Re:Avalon Business Systems

[Johnso]

Well, you don't have to carry a laptop. :)

Really, the greatest thing we get out of it collaboration. There are a few solutions out there to bridge the virtual divide, but doing it with online software sure makes it easier.

Another aspect is that it runs even when your computer isn't. We have automated tasks (like reminder e-mails) go out at certain times of the day and it's nice not to have to maintain servers or backups ourselves.Mp> Oh, one of the other nice things is that our clients and vendors can log into the system to view and place orders, download invoices, check inventory, etc. That's been a huge selling point to get in our customers' doors.

Re:Avalon Business Systems

[TheSloth2001ca]

I am all for online services, but I they need to have a offline component... I don;t wanna be locked out of word because my Internet connection is down

That's OK

[temojen]

The companies that make them are the only people who think storing your data on someone else's server is a good idea.

Why?

[Eightyford]

What are the advantages of having an online Office Suite? I'd say that the disadvantages include: security issues, slow speed, dependance on internet connection, limited features, harder to program, and probably many others. What is the point?

Re:Why?

[generic-man]

Because Linux users don't have any decent office suites* and this would be a "cross-platform" solution**.

* OpenOffice.org, a hugely-bloated fork of an old closed-source imitation of Microsoft Office, doesn't count.

** Assuming that your "valid" XHTML and scriptaculous JavaScript works equally well on all web browsers, which it won't, forcing you to make various forks of scripts.

Re:Why?

[karnal]

Oh no you didn't.

You do realize where you're posting this, right?? :)

Re:Why?

[dslauson]

I can think of a couple reasons:
It's easy to roll out upgrades, people don't have to worry as much about backups (the tape drive will take care of that), you don't have to maintain hundreds of separately installed office suites, etc...

I could see this being somewhat attractive to an administrator, but as a user it seems like a real pain in the ass.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

That's all very well until they roll out an upgrade, without notice or without your having any control over it, that breaks your business's criticial documents.

Re:Why?

[Otter]

What is the point?

As far as I can tell, the only reason everyone here is so excited about it is that they're convinced that Google, with its Super Google Power, will be first to market.

If Microsoft (which, believe it or not, still has a few developers left, plus an existing code base to work from) steps up with first with a closed-source, subscription-based office suite with remotely stored files -- we'll see how enthusiastic the AJAX groupies are then.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

O3 is bloated? At 70-something megabytes compared to about 400-something megabytes of MS Office?

I have Office XP and O3 on Windows. I use O3 all the time, Office XP almost never. Office XP gets hung on the simplest functions and crashes often, O3 doesn't and opens Word docs withut a hitch while preserving the layout perfectly. And you say Linux users don't have any decent office suites? Unless O3 on Linux is radically different you're just plain wrong.

Re:Why?

[generic-man]

OpenOffice.org is enormous. I have the Mac version of OpenOffice.org 2.0 and it's 341.5 MB large. NeoOffice/J, the "more Mac-like" version, exceeds 500 MB in size. Both take forever to start and look hideous, even more so than Microsoft Office for Mac.

Where did you get the 70 MB figure from -- the installer? Once you actually unpack and install OpenOffice.org, it rivals Microsoft Office for raw bloat. Its Excel clone is absolutely awful, barely playing catch-up to Excel's worksheet storage limits (which are about to increase again) and saving Excel files in formats so arcane even GPLed Excel readers can't parse them. OpenOffice.org doesn't support importing Excel files with automation or third-party add-ins.

Microsoft Word is not the killer app for MS Office. Excel is way up there, and Outlook is too. I don't like it any more than the next Linux user, but there isn't a free product out there that provides all the features long-time Outlook users have come to demand. I blame the Linux zealots who scoff condescendingly on the Outlook-using masses.

Re:Why?

[drinkypoo]

What are the advantages of having an online Office Suite? I'd say that the disadvantages include: security issues, slow speed, dependance on internet connection, limited features, harder to program, and probably many others. What is the point?

Advantages to the consumer:

1. Never have to install software again.
2. Documents can be stored on local system or remote system.
3. Don't have to worry about software upgrades.
4. Don't have to pay for software upgrades to get new functionality.
5. Possibly enhanced functionality - may integrate with other web services/apps, esp. the google offering.

Disadvantages to the consumer:

1. security issues
2. slow speed (although I think this is less of a problem than you do - you can load features as you need them, don't have to load the whole app at once.)
3. dependance on internet connection

Meanwhile, it's pretty much pure advantage to the developer. It probably won't be harder to develop. You don't have to stick to a release cycle. Sure, people are always loading the software from your servers, but there's no big rush on them when an update comes out, because everyone who visits the site will get updates in the form of updated components. You never have to ship a software package. And finally, you can sell an "appliance" that features your application, for in-house use at assorted corporations. You can actually charge just as much for it as if you were hosting, plus charge them more for support...

Re:Why?

[mabhatter654]

but being web based there's a lot less chance of that happening. All the docs should be availiable for testing sample so QC should be easier too. Also, they can make smaller changes more often so breakage isn't as bad. Realize too, that the documents would probably be part of a database until you "printed" them to a file so they would auto-magically upgrade right along with the server.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Sorry, but that just doesn't have the ring of truth to it. There is a reason that every major corporate IT group in the world field tests upgrades, uses things like SUS, etc. We used to have some systems at work set to pull from Microsoft Update automatically. One day, a patch for a known vulnerability took down the entire office network when it "fixed" Samba so that none of our Windows machines could talk to any of our *nix servers. The following day, no machines in the office were set to pull updates automatically.

Re:Why?

[hypersql]

Advantages:

• No client installation required.
• Security: no viruses (because no client installation). Data would be clustered on the server side, so less data loss problems.
• Fast startup (just open the browser).

About the disadvantages:

• Security issues: Similar to e-mail security problems, I don't think its a problem for most users.
• Slow speed: Internet connections are fast nowadays. Application speed is probably ok. Remember you don't need to download the whole document always, just one page at a time (Ajax).
• Dependence on Internet connections: You have this dependence with e-mail anyway. Probably ok for most users. But I agree, this is the hardest problem. Could be solved (see below).
• Limited features: As long as the app has enough features it's ok for the masses. See GMail: it's enough functionality for the masses.
• Harder to program: Yes, but this never was a problem. Rembember the Win 3.1 programming API? First only C++? Still every bigger company started writing Windows applications.

Not all such applications need to run on a distant server. They could very well be installed on the company server, or even on the desktop (like Google Desktop search works today). If installed on the desktop, not all (convinience) functionality is required, because desktop use would be a 'fallback' solution. You do need document standards. The 'small' installation could be slower as well. If you make it a 3 tier application (Browser / Middleware / Database) you wouldn't need a clustered database; an embedded Java database (plug: http:www.h2database.com/ would be enough. The middleware would be probably Java (but not the full blown J2EE stack).

Re:Why?

[Hackeron]

Mind telling us what Outlook does that Evolution doesnt?

Only thing I can think of is the downright awful Salesforce integration that allows you to click on a link to see the web interface and slow down Outlook.

Other things are poor stability, poor performance, 2GB pst storage limit, painfully slow startup with more than several thousand emails, decay from normal use requiring periodic installation, etc.

Re:Why?

[generic-man]

Outlook supports integration with CRM tools (like Salesforce) that geeks hate but salespeople use very frequently. Because geeks lash out against CRM instead of creating open alternatives, Outlook wins by default.

Outlook also connects to an Exchange server to do file and calendar sharing more readily than Evolution does. Evolution's Exchange connector, when last I checked, uses an interface which mimics a web browser clicking through Outlook Web Access. Outlook uses the proprietary Exchange protocol and so is faster. Unfortunately, because geeks get all huffy about "groupware," work on an open alternative to Exchange proceeds at a glacial pace.

Outlook is seriously flawed in all the ways that you describe, but frankly I haven't found an open solution that is mature or feature-rich enough to replace it yet.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenOffice is huge? Ever look at how much space Office 2003 uses? You're comparing the latest OpenOffice, so you have to compare the latest MS Office, not some old copy of Office '97 or something. Excluding filesystem overhead, my maximal install of OOo takes up 266MiB. Quite acceptable. If you just check the Microsoft Office folder alone, sure you'll see more like 171MiB for 2003, but, you have to remember that MS software -- especially office -- installs bits and peices of itself all over the place so that there could be just as much space wasted to Office 2003 as OOo 2.0. According to the Add/Remove programs, uninstalling MS Office 2003 will get me 260MiB more space. Still, either way, neither of the programs are taking up very much of my old little 160GiB harddrive (yes, yes, I know, I need to upgrade -- everyone these days has 300+.) For that matter, on my old system with it's 80GiB harddrive I still find those space requirements to be minimal.

Don't get me wrong, OOo takes up a fair amount of memory and such due to the way it centralizes everything into one big application (then again, this is probably more efficient when you work on a lot of things in different parts of OOo at once.) We have to be realistic here though. Not too many people are trying to run MS Office and OOo on a Pentium 1 system with 64MiB of ram and then complaining that OOo runs a little less efficiently on that system. Don't look so hard for faults that you can refuse to use a software simply because it's less able to run well on a really ancient computer compared to it's competition. Heck, I can build you a much more mordern system than that old dusty Pentium 1 you can't get OOo to run on which will run OpenOffice smoothly for maybe $250, which is about what you're looking at for buying MS Office anyway.

Why do we need higher worksheet limits btw? I'm sorry, but, if you're using that much at once, you are being seriously inefficient and need to redesign the layout of your project while you still can.

Re:Why?

[generic-man]

Comparing apples to apples, the /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004 folder on my Mac takes up 404.4 MB with absolutely everything installed -- including Entourage, a mail client. I don't know how many mibbledybytes that is, but it's a lot. At least Microsoft Office for Mac lets you load each application individually, unlike OpenOffice.org which occupies untold hectomebibytes of memory when you just want one application. (The Mac version of OOo doesn't even give you different icons to make you think you're just loading OOCalc, for example.)

It's not just the 256 columns that are stifling in Excel. Another limit is 2^14 rows -- some really long reports can benefit from the 2^20 rows/sheet limit in Excel 2007.

why?

[jcgf]

What would the advantage of a web based office suite as opposed to a regular one? Not having to install software locally comes to mind, but having to upload documents all the time to view them sounds painstaking. Besides, it will probably involve activex controls which need to be installed negating said advantage.

What?? No edlin?

[GillBates0]

Yeah, yeah...I know it's not a "web application", but edlin beats any editor/word processor developed in the past 15+ years of computing.

Who needs an "office tool" when they have edlin. vi and emacs users don't know what they're missing.

Re:What?? No edlin?

[thewiltog]

I'm old enough to have used edlin, which means I also get the joke.

Re:What?? No edlin?

[drinkypoo]

Oh, come off it. Edlin is just a clone of ed. vi users have ed already, if they choose to use it.

I had to use edlin just once. I think I used ed about twice. If I'm lucky, I'll never have to touch either ever again.

I think this joke has passed its expiration date. DOS users mostly no longer exist and even if they do they probably won't know what edline is. Unix users mostly won't give a shit and if they even know it exists, they probably know it's an ed-knockoff.

Re:What?? No edlin?

[bubulubugoth]

The Lars Penji LPC mud driver, and the 2.4.5 library used to have an editor. I tougth it was a "online editor" called ed, but it was really a "ONE line editor"... the first time I used it, it was a pain, but later on, I get used, and it was very fast to edit files and make changes...

And I think I m not so old... :P but then again, Im talking about muds...

Gosh... I m old.

Ziff Davis Advertising Application

[Anonymous Coward]

just reminded me why i block adverts, that whole site is just an advertising application, content is more or less missing if we eliminate the "sponsors" , "white papers" and the 16 banners/adverts from the page

embarrasing that Slashdot even links them up

Here's my guess

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

What will be the primary elements of an Office Suite for the Web be?

Failure, I suspect.

What advantage does any web-based office application have to justify the incredible risks of allowing your data out-of-house and being dependent on a working Internet connection to be able to do anything?

Re:Here's my guess

[Theatetus]

I agree with your criticism of the idea, but from what I've seen in the past couple of decades, the fact that it is an abysmally stupid idea with no pros and many cons makes me think it will catch on like wildfire.

Re:Here's my guess

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The security model would be fundamentally flawed in several ways, so I'm afraid you're almost certainly right. :-/

Re:Here's my guess

[vhogemann]

Agreed,

Using these technologies as services outside the company network is a serious security risk. But they don't need to be outside the company.

Imagine this "online" Office suite as something you can deploy inside your company network, this can really help to increase productivity. Sharing documents will be a breeze, immagine be able to interconnect complex documents using a Wikki-like structure! Be able to collaborativelly edit them, and keep several versions and revisions. And do this with nothing more than TCP/IP and HTTP.

Now imagine that Google starts to sell these, a GMail server, Calendaring, Text processor, Spreadsheet, Database and Instant Messaging... all integrated, searcheable, and ready to deploy. Can you picture those blue Google servers selling like hot cakes?

In this scenario the OS will really become irrelevant, you'll be able to use simple solutions, as thinclients running a kiosk-style browser. This makes support dead simple, and cut a lot of costs.

And if you really need to do your work offline, there's always the option to include an export to OpenOffice feature, after all it's a standart and anyone is free to implement it, including Google.

Oh, yeah... and this will really hurt Microsoft.

Re:Here's my guess

[owlstead]

There is also a risk for people, especially simple consumers and small businesses, to store things at their own site, if they have a less than ample backup strategy. I would not mind the risk of loosing a tiny bit of data when the web goes down. And as broadband is getting more stable (my connection statistics are fantastic) the problems are mitigated. Actually, I would find it pretty usefull if my internet provider would have an option for backing up data to my (web) space there. (I am fortunate enough to be able to use rsync, I do only have a certain amount of diskspace available).

Not that I would like a web-based office suite that much, especially if it uses HTML for it's interface.

Re:Here's my guess

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

There is also a risk for people, especially simple consumers and small businesses, to store things at their own site, if they have a less than ample backup strategy.

But that is a manageable risk. Trusting a random third party with your criticial, confidential information is not a manageable risk; if they lose it it, you're screwed, and if they leak it, you're screwed. In fact, data protection legislation would make even using a service like this legally dicey in some places, for precisely this reason.

As for broadband, my ISP was excellent and I had near 100% uptime for a year. And then two weeks ago, something went wrong, and since then (i.e., for the whole intervening two weeks), I have had intermittent trouble connecting, connections dropped while in use, etc. If I'd been a business, I might have been out of business by now with that level of downtime.

Re:Here's my guess

[owlstead]

Yes, downtime can be difficult. But for a few MS licenses you can easily get a more reliable internet connection (SDSL with a specified minimum uptime). And as a business, it would make sense to have a spare modem and splitter (if ADSL) as well. Most consumers do not have to take such measures, but for most businesses that rely even a bit on internet access, losing your connection can be costly, even if your word processor is not web based.

fck editor

[brenddie]

This is web based, open source and I like the name. http://www.fckeditor.net/demo/default.html is a "u" missing

IBM

[Kadin2048]

Didn't we hear just a while ago, in relation to all of the OpenOffice controversy, that IBM was developing some sort of thin-client office productivity suite? I distinctly remember hearing something about it. Actually I remember thinking that it sounded much more Google's style than IBM ... but it was cool nonetheless.

I'm not really sure who they were/are planning on marketing it to -- developing countries, perhaps? -- and I'm not sure that the recent past has really shown much support for the whole "the network is the computer" concept, but maybe they could sell it to people as a cost savings. Get one reasonably priced server, and a dozen or so diskless thin clients, and you could outfit a whole classroom with computers without buying a single copy of Windows or Microsoft Office. And nobody ever has to worry about moving their work from one computer to another, it's always stored and available.

There are a lot of good things that could be said for such a system. It would take me a while to get over my hesitation to use a web browser for anything BUT web browsing, though.

Here is the article I think I heard about it from:
http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5208998.html

Re:IBM

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www-142.ibm.com/software/workplace/products /product5.nsf/wdocs/whitepaperseries

Business won't bite

[webmistressrachel]

I doubt IT departments will encourage wholesale adoption of this over local storage solutions.

Imagine the news - "Office Farm Servers Hacked Last Night".

Local security just feels safer, even when it's not.

Re:Business won't bite

[Anonymous Coward]

Local security just feels safer, even when it's not.

I know what you mean and feel kind of same but let's look a little bit beyond our office documents for a moment. We feel safer keeping money and valuables in a bank than in a mattres. Companies feel safe using data centers and often prefer this to hosting in their own offices. Almost everyone feels ok using email for business communication despite the fact that it travels over the Internet and and email servers that we don't control.

So I won't be surprised if this office stuff will catch up in the furture despite the fact that we don't feel quite all right about it now.

Re:Business won't bite

[Watson Ladd]

When the feds come knocking, best if you can hear it.

Re:Business won't bite

[djrogers]

I doubt IT departments will encourage wholesale adoption of this over local storage solutions. Imagine the news - "Office Farm Servers Hacked Last Night". Local security just feels safer, even when it's not.

Actually, businesses have been biting on this model for a while - almost 40% of corporate email is hosted offsite by a 3rd party, and this trend is growing. MS Exhcnage hosting is one of the fastest growing ASP products out there, and that stuff ALL of your goodies offsite...

What will be the primary elements

[wardk]

What will be the primary elements of an Office Suite for the Web be?

<hand up>I know I know I know...call me!!! </hand up>

how about Word processing, spreadsheet and presentation?

duh

Re:What will be the primary elements

[dotpavan]

you forgot clippy

Cant wait

[spazoidspam]

I can't wait for Microsoft OR Google to release a good web based office client. The advantages of a web-based office solution are numerous, but the biggest that comes to mind is that non-savvy computer people dont have to worry about losing their files. Of course I back up all my documents, but my parents arent that smart. When their hard drive failed they lost it all, including all of their email (outlook). I decided to set them up on an exchange server with Outlook Web Access, which they constantly rave about. Next time they have to migrate to a computer, email is one less thing I have to worry about getting backed up (I use gmail of course, but they like sticking with their ISPs email address and dont like the normal webmail interface).

The disadvantages of a web-based office solution are obvious and aparent, but the fact is that they all start to dissapear as bandwidth goes up and the years march on. Right now a web-based office solution would not work too well due to processor/bandwidth concerns, but in 3-5 years i can see this as a real good solution.

Just imagine, you drop your laptop in hot lava while touring the volcanos in hawaii. Dont despair! All of your documents are safe and sound along with your email back on good ole googles servers. Even more likely is your mom gets a new computer, but instead of calling you and asking you to come over and copy all her old data on to her new computer, she already has access to all of it.

Re:Cant wait

[Zphbeeblbrox]

Actually I'd much rather see a solution that built in some sort of versioning system. I'd like to be able to carry my office suite on a flash drive use it from any machine and when an internet connection was available it would sync with my repository. In the meantime though I could perform offline editing from any machine. That way I get the benefits of binary clients with the benefits of online storage. I don't really relish the thought of a web based wordprocessor per se. I just want to be able to access all my data from anywhere and sync it from anywhere. An SVN UCB content provider for Open Office anyone? hrmmm that sounds pretty darn awesome actually I must think about this further.

Re:Cant wait

[glitch23]

Just imagine, you drop your laptop in hot lava while touring the volcanos in hawaii. Dont despair! All of your documents are safe and sound along with your email back on good ole googles servers.

If only real lava would let you get that close to even toss your laptop in I'd be with you but no one can get close enough to lava w/o having other issues like 3rd degree burns. By the way, before your parents' hard drive failed, where were you ? I guess you weren't doing your job as a good son and teaching them about good backup procedures or showing them how to use a USB drive to store all their personal information on which they could take to any computer, even a NEW one, without your help AND it would be much faster than having to work with an "application" over the web.

Re:Cant wait

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft Sharepoint Services. It's a free add-in for IIS that does versioning, check-in/out, and is very easy for the users. Check it out.

Honestly... don't bother.

[Colin Smith]

So we have hardware -> os -> browser -> web site -> office suite

Why not cut out the web site bollocks? Honestly, not everything has to be on the web. If I *really* wanted a centralised office suite I'd add a VNC server and connect over ssh.

Re:Honestly... don't bother.

[LesPaul75]

Well, that would do half of it, I guess. But the other advantage to web-based applications is that they are maintained by the host. You (the user) don't have to bother with installing them or upgrading them or migrating them or whatever. For example, I haven't installed an e-mail app in years and years. But I still get the very latest version, all the time.

Also, many people who use office don't know what VNC or SSH are. But they know how to type in a URL.

Re:Honestly... don't bother.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's compare the bandwidth requirements. One time download of maximum 10 MB Javascript (this is really, really stretching it). VNC = 1.5 MBit/s connection for crappy quality and probably it isn't a very low latency connection. SSH = no gui. So let's compare this again.

10 MB (again, with compression especially, complete exagerration). Latency not an issue. Bandwidth only an issue for the initial startup (if that, depending on how the website is done). Components look native Can scale to hundreds of thousands of users.

Constant drain on your bandwdith, even if you're not doing anything. Latency a huge issue. Completely unusable if the latency is too high or your upload/download is saturated. Quality completely dependant on bandwidth available. Scalability is not possible unless it is on a LAN, and even then to a maximum of 1000 users (if on a 1 GBit LAN network).

Latency/bandwidth a non-issue. Scales extremely well. No gui possible.

So why again is VNC/SSH preferable to a webapp if your going to be distributing an office suite online?

hang on a second...

[Anonymous Coward]

There seems to be a prevailing sense that web applications are all hype and fad. Sure, I don't very much like the idea of hosting my spreadsheets on a server that running who knows where, but within' a business-intranet these ideas start to make alot of sense.

I've worked in accounting with medium sized construction companies for a few years now. I've never "officially" had a position in IT, but at the firms I've worked for I've always been the computer guy.

Within an environment with 'less than savy' computer users and a 'less than low budget' IT department, it would seem that the simplist solution is also the best. My favorite example of this now is using webmail. At the firm I was previously with email is provided through a web hosting company, and yet most of the employees insisted on using Outlook. Now I could see if they made use of more of Outlook's features, but it was just the email and address book that it was being used for. It was just more fat, and if the office had been more willing to switch, I'm sure it would have been a matter of a few weeks before everybody was fully confortable. And that's one less application residing on your local machine that has to be managed (multiply that by 6 machines).

Another example is the office i'm in now. There are 10 machines in my care, all of which run different flavors of windows, office, etc... Some are (yuck!) win98, some win2000, some xp. We've got office 2000 and office xp. It's just a mess. Most of the work we do here is with office or excel, and we're not building nuclear cruise missles, just simple day-to-day paperwork. Would it not make sense to use a web based application, deployed on our intranet server (just used for files and peachtree accounting software), in place of office? Just think of the advantages of having all your users using up to date software with only one install to manage, no more "is that spreadsheet on the server or on my machine".

When I watch my mom log onto hotmail without any hesitation or confusion, I can't help but think that there's something to all the web app buzz. Sometimes I think us /.er's forget about those who don't eat microchips for breakfast.

IBM Workplace beat them to market

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116084,0 0.asp

Airset

[PineHall]

I have been impressed with Airset. They are aiming to be more than just a calendar. They have other PIM features too. They have a recent deal with Verizon Wireless so that your phone can share the calendars, etc. I like the sharing of calendars so that I can know wife's schedule and be able to better coordinate activities with her.

pdf to usurp doc and ppt in user land

[Quirk]

I suspect MS will counter movement toward an Open Document Format by bundling pdf capabilities directly into Office 2007. Further I think most of Adobe's line of software is in MicroSoft's crosshairs.

In terms of Office Tools for the web pdf will become the defacto format. The Open Source community has a chance to finally compete with MS word and ppt, as both file formats will give way to pdf. While the continued development of Open Office is a good thing, in terms of competing with MS on equal ground pdf is the way to go.

Academia has widely utlilized pdf and equivalents for many years, as have many govenment institutions. The exisiting user base will likely catapult pdf into user land and we'll see a quick widespred adoption over a few years.

just my loose change

Re:pdf to usurp doc and ppt in user land

[Hackeron]

You cannot edit a PDF file. Its like a postscript file or a jpeg image. - Yes its the current standard for distributing files and it will likely grow but this article is dealing with editing files with a web based tool and you cant edit a pdf.

My web-based word processor

[detour207]

I recently created a web-based word processor with a bunch of features that I felt were lacking in other offerings.

Description: AJAX-powered web application which serves as a web-based word processor, content/document management system, publishing system, and wiki-like collaboration system

Link: http://ghostnotebook

Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.

Re:My web-based word processor

[ben_1432]

Umm, all you did was drop tinymce into a page and make it save using ajax instead of a traditional post. Want a medal or something? What was the hardest part - unzipping tinymce or ftping it?

Re:My web-based word processor

[detour207]

It might seem simplistic but its really a bit more than that: revision history stored for each document + diff utility, multiple controllable views for each document, threaded discussion pages for each document, rss feeds for additions to a project as well as page edits, multiple output formats, tagging, etc... Yes I used TinyMCE as my editor and I built functionality around it, you can see where I give credit to that project and many others that I used on the Thank You page.

Re:My web-based word processor

[symbolic]

I applaud your effort, but I must say that the aesthetics of the site aren't too appealing.

Of course...

[MissionAccomplished]

even if management could be convinced that online office apps are the way to go, they'd most likely pitch a huge fit once the internet connection goes south: "Now we can't browse the web, use e-mail AND run 'Word and Excel'?" Hate to be the person on the wrong end of THAT berating!

Options are benefits

[sedyn]

Imagine being the average user. Now, setting up programs isn't fun. Remember, this is Windows we are talking about, wizard hell does kick in.

Another good feature is that things could be automatically stored online. Currently, I don't download any of my email to a local PC. I leave it where I am assured either ssh or web access. This is quite benefitial because I use about three computers in the average week, and sometimes I will want to access my email elsewhere.

Consider my personal situation:
I don't own a printer. I use a public printer at the university. Now, the quickest way I can get access to the printer is through a Windows terminal, but I currently use Linux and OS X, thus to print a report, I have to save as a pdf, put it in a common place online, then access and print through Windows.

An online office package, even if it could be hosted by a university. would make the pdf and storage issue dissapear. Let alone cross-compatibility issues...

My point is, you never know what users might want/need, thus, more options are a good thing.

Thin clients are better. (n/t).

[danielk1982]

no text here

Welcome to 1997

[yerM)M]

Word Perfect For Java.

Not that far off

[Sylver Dragon]

Ok, I didn't RTFA, but from what I gather this is all about an office suite, which is based on a server and accessed via a web browser. This is happening in Office 12. MS is releasing a web based version, and even willing to host it for companies, for a fee. Sometime in the next few weeks we are going to try it out in beta at my office. Personally, I don't see a need for it, but our Network Engineer has a hard-on for flashy new things, especially MS ones. Fortunatly, I'll probably be able to kill this before it gets too far in my office, but I can see where some places may embrace it for the ease of management.

Apparently...

[compuguy84]

A grammar checker would hurt.. ;) ...did I spell grammar right?

Re:Apparently...

[McFadden]

A grammar checker would hurt.. ;)

>What will be the primary elements of an Office Suite for the Web be? (sic)

Wouldn't hurt for Slashdot editors to use one occasionally.

Re:Apparently...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your Granma is fine, but it wouldn't hurt to visit her a little more often.

why not yet?

[bblazer]

Maybe someone can help me out here, but I do not understand why this hasn't happened yet? Are they having a difficult time with a pricing model? Is the technology not there yet (I am not sure that it isn't). Is it an adoption issue? We have been hearing about this for so long, I guess I am just confused as to why no one has stepped up to the plate yet.

Dateline 2010

[GigG]

Washington- The DOJ today demanded that REALLYCOOLWEBAPP.COM turn over all of the files that have been created with their hugely popular suite of online office programs. The company is being forced to turn over the files so authorities can find out who wrote, "President H. Clinton is a big fat poopy head."...

The guy who WTFA didn't even RTFA

[h4ter]

"To be honest, I don't know much about these services..."

Then how, exactly, do you purport to tell me which is the best calendar app?

Number 1 reason companies push web apps?

[cicho]

Ads! Think of it: millions of office workers spending their lives glued to their Word or Excel displays, whole lot of screen estate, and not a single ad in sight. And just as people would frown at ads in desktop apps, they are much accustomed to ads appearing every time they do anything on the web. How long before the first web-based office suite displays ads, "carefully tailored to the content of your documents"? Not that damn long, I'd say.

Re:Number 1 reason companies push web apps?

[AutopsyReport]

Precisely, man. I'm in the latter stages of releasing a very niche web application to a specific audience (not computer-related, as an aside), but offering it completely for free. Since there is no application close to its kind (and again, it is very niche), the aim is to attract users in such a way that they become dependent on it. Plus, it's free. And when the traffic is moving, introduce some inconspicuous ads.

Instead of collecting fees from the consumers, you collect it from the advertisers who are more than willing to pay for millions of consumers to see their advertisement. Not only is it a keen approach financially, but you avoid the "I don't really feel like paying" barrier that most consumers put up.

Missing Option

[Anonymous Coward]

http://online.thinkfree.com/

Hey firefox guys!

[mabhatter654]

one common thread I see is the on-line/off-line component of these. I'd like to see some firefox extensions that could approach the same functionality. making a web app saved to a PC look just the same as one on the web. so you weren't always tied to a connection.

Re:Hey firefox guys!

[drinkypoo]

To be honest, there's little to nothing stopping this from happening already. If you use relative paths in everything, you can run the system as easily from a local filesystem copy as you can from remote. The only reason it won't happen is that they will put as much code as possible into the server-side so that you can't just save all the files from your cache, edit 'em a little bit, and have an office suite. Or, in other words, you're not going to be able to do this with anything that's not FOSS.

WebEx WebOffice

[democritus]

So much talk about web office's but they don't mention WebEx WebOffice.

The missing step is

[1800maxim]

2. Sleep on it

Don't think in terms of writing personal documents

[Siguy]

The appeal of applications like this doesn't come from replacing word for your normal everyday word editing. To me, at least, as editor of a small magazine, it's in being able to easily and clearly share access among many writers to the same document and to be able to have one central copy online that can always be accessed. When you don't have a big physical location like an office but still need to collaborate, web suites like these would be a lot better than emailing multiple versions of documents back and forth.

I think the potential of these applications for distributed work are really interesting, but for a regular corporate office, I see no advantage over just running word in every cubicle and getting files over the network.

Office Suite as a concept is outdated

[melted]

Think about it, what does a word processing program do to your shiny new 4GHz P4 with 4GB RAM? It turns it into a glorified typewriter. Not a damn thing would change if you used notepad instead. What's the advantage of a standalone (exchange-less) email client over, say, mutt? Prettier UI. Spreadsheet is somewhat useful for tinkering with numbers, but when you need more than just back of the envelope calculation, you need an integrated solution that will eliminate double and triple entry of data along with errors associated with that.

The future is pretty darn bright for browser based (but not necessarily web based) groupware. You deploy one single server and voila, everyone in your org has everything they need to do their work. No installation is necessary. And not just that, all "apps" are integrated with each other. Need your spreadsheet to lookup on the DB? Insert a lookup field. Want your document to automatically update itself based on a simple DB query? No problem.

I know all of the above (except no-install deployment) can be done using MS Office, but as of right now this is NOT done. Microsoft would rather see someone do it and then copy the ideas than get into the messy business of developing customized solutions using office as a platform.

I hacked something together

[MarkWatson]

I spent several evenings hacking something together (http://kbdocs.com/) that was really for my own use, but I made it public. While I wrote this in Java/JSPs, I have something similar in my upcoming Ruby Enterprise book, using Rails.

As an author, I rely heavily on OpenOffice.org and sometimes Word, but I also like having a light weight web based system for writing notes, etc. that are mostly for myself. BTW, my http://kbdocs.com/ system nicely exports to other formats.

Yes they will

[ms139us]

I doubt IT departments will encourage wholesale adoption of this over local storage solutions.

There will, of course, be resistance from the old school crowd, just like there is with any new, outsourced service. The advantages to this are mind-numbing, including:

• Uniform clients
• Centralized management
• Lower overall cost
• Centralized upgrades

Your provider upgrades the software/hardware in one place, and they get the joy of maintaining it, backing it up, ensuring availability, etc.

All you have to do is make sure the desktops are suitable, pay a per-desktop/per-month fee and everything is done. Your company can go back to focusing on whatever its core business is.

This transition is inevitable and has already started.

Collaboration

[SashaMan]

If you're just writing a letter by yourself, a web-based word app doesn't help much, but for collaborative docs it makes a very big difference. In my company we used to do all of our requirements and design docs in Word and put these up on Microsoft Sharepoint. It sucked pretty bad. These types of documents have LOTS of stakeholders (developers, project management, marketing, etc.) and lots of people editing them. When we used Word, the process usually had someone "owning" the doc, and when the docs were sent out for review, people would send back comments in email, then the owner would incorporate them in the doc.

Things got much more efficient when we switched over to a MediaWiki installation for our docs. It took a while to get used to the mindset that ANYONE can edit a doc (we just keep track of baselines and can always roll back if needed), but now feedback is incorporated into the docs much quicker. Note that Word with sharepoint says they have these collaborative features, but we were much more successful with the Wiki - everyone has a web browser but now everyone has the latest version of Word.

naptaar

[Anonymous Coward]

A good calendaring application: naptaar --- the article doesn't mention it. I wrote it, it's still in beta, but it's fully functional. Have fun =)

Might be a good idea for Google...

[adrenalinekick]

As everyone on slashdot will readily tell you, Google is good, MS is bad.

If I were Google, I would want to push the positives of web-based office products. Google is a web-based software company at its core. Microsoft is a desktop software company at its core. So far, IMHO Google has been releasing better products in the web arena, while MS has released better products in the desktop arena (Before you shout, note that the last I checked, google did not have an operating system or an office suite to its name, microsoft has both - therefore by their simple existence MS's are better than Google's)

Also of note is that each company is trying to make inroads into the other's area of expertise. MS is trying to improve its web-based products, and Google is trying to develop more desktop products
sidenote: I just got the Google Desktop sidebar... and I love it

It seems to me that it is in Google's interest to make desktop software as obsolete as possible. Their goal should be for you to need nothing more than a web browser (translation: Firefox,Opera,Safari, anything but IE) to accomplish nearly all of your everyday tasks. In Google's perfect world of the future - Microsoft software becomes obsolete because everything is available online.

Dumb terminals with web-browsers may very well be the way of the future - Microsoft on its current track would obviously be seriously hurt where Google has the potential to thrive... *Successful* office products online would be a giant step in Google's favor.

Re:Might be a good idea for Google...

[amuzulo]

I think it's just a matter of time before the GBrowser comes out and then we wouldn't have to rely on any other web browser. After all, Google did register gbrowser.com in April 2004...

IBM Workplace

[Kadin2048]

http://www-142.ibm.com/software/workplace/products /product5.nsf/wdocs/whitepaperseries

Thanks, AC.

Well, there's my answer: it's called the IBM Workplace, and the client software is the Workplace Managed Client (they don't waste a lot of effort on their names, do they).

When I saw "White Paper Series" my first reaction was "vaporware!" But it does seem to actually exist. In fact there is some sort of demo which you can download here, although proceed at your own risk, I didn't try it. There is some sort of registration required.

I can't tell whether the client actually does anything without the server half, but if anyone wants to play with it and report back, I'm curious. Supposedly runs on AIX, Linux, Solaris, and Windows, from what I can tell.

The main office tool is there already

[Acetysal]

Free online minesweeper - http://www.mine-sweeper.com/. I bet you can find Solitaire, too.

Web-based office apps: WORST IDEA EVER

[fyngyrz]

• If the net is available, but down, you can't work.

• If the net is unavailable (train, plane, submarine, cabin in the woods, spacecraft, mountain climbing, cave research, day trip in your car), you can't work.

• If the app provider goes away, your documents are trash, because you never had the app. Assuming you weren't foolish enough to allow your documents to be maintained remotely, in which case they aren't trash, they're simply gone.

• And of course, for larger documents, the speed of the connection is an issue, not everyone will have a fast connection for a while, and that's going to cause some serious accessability issues for at least the next few years or so.

• The inability to run on webless machines means you can no longer decisively secure your documents and data because you must be connected to the web.

• The fact that your data will be going back and forth over the net means you just directly handed it to (at the very least) the gummint, and to your competitors as well if they are sufficiently motivated.

• We've come to the point where office apps are so poorly written, so inefficiently packaged as executables, in such innapropriate languages, that they somehow manage to operate below human response times even on 3.6 GHz processors with gigs of ram available to them. OO is terribly, terribly slow, not just to start but also to run, and Office, while better, is no speed demon either. Now, the webaps idea proposes that we add network latency to the "feature" that umpty-jillion other users can now share the some of the same CPU and network resources with you. Oh boy. Now, that will be fun.

• Hey, while we're at it, let's pretend that all computer systems have access to the same web language. It's not like I see any compatability issues between my various and sundry sets of browsers on each of my various and sundy linux, Mac and PC machines. Not to mention my Palm, my Sony handheld game machine, and my old Amiga. Oh, no. Everything works perfectly everywhere, yeah, you betcha. :/

Yeah, let's all just hop right on this bandwagon. Never mind that it's going downhill towards the boiling tar pits at breakneck speed, its fun to be on board the latest thing!

Webapps for important data: Brought to you by the same people who think suicide is a life-enhancing personal choice.

Re:Web-based office apps: WORST IDEA EVER

[Anonymous Coward]

PSST! Dude! Read the rest of the replies. Your complaints have already been addressed.

This post brought to you by the Association for Developers Who Like to Point Out "Doh!" Moments to Other Developers and Make Them Feel Sheepish (ADWLPODMODMTF). All Rights Reserved.

Re:Web-based office apps: WORST IDEA EVER

[fyngyrz]

Pssst, Dude: My complaints can't be addressed. If you attempt to solve one, you simply magnify another. These issues form an interlinked, interdependent series of drawbacks.

However, if someone wants to try to address them, I'll be perfectly happy to put a finer point on any particular compromise. Would you like to be first?