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]

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.

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

[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

[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.

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]

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.

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?

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.

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.

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