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AjaxWrite to "Compete" with MS Word

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the crashed-my-browser dept.

prostoalex writes "Michael Robertson (of MP3.com, Linspire, SIPPhone, GizmoProject and MP3Tunes.com fame) is launching a Web-only competitor to Microsoft Office by creating a suite of applications replicating Microsoft Office look and feel. From the posting: "But ajaxWrite is just the start. We have a library of applications we have been working on to replace most of the standard PC software titles. Every week we will launch a new sophisticated program on Wednesday at 12:00 PST on ajaxlaunch.com. These programs will push the boundaries of what people believe is possible today with web-delivered software. These programs look and operate much like their traditional software cousins, but are cross-platform, loaded dynamically, and are available to users at no charge. I'm convinced if you try a few of these products you will understand how the software business will fundamentally change." ajaxWrite is the first launched product."

6 of 390 comments (clear)

  1. Man, I dunno. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My web browsers crash all the time and I'm always closing the windows by accident. And I'm supposed to use this as a host for my *word processor*? Is this really a good idea? Unless all storage is on the server and it has a VERY smart autosaving strategy, I don't really see this as being the tiniest bit useful.

  2. The Power of the Web in your Hand! by jfengel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Click on the ajaxWrite icon to launch an MS Word-compatible word processor in seconds".

    Many seconds. Many, many seconds.

    "Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at 207.67.194.7."

    I want a web-based word processor so that my letter to Mom can get slashdotted?

  3. Quick review... by carsonc · · Score: 5, Informative

    Quick review... Problems:
    1. spellchecker isn't working yet (there, but grayed out) ...making it useless
    2. I will let you close the window and loose you work without a warning. That's a big minus in my books.
    3. And it's not handling the load from /. very well, it's really slowing down.
    Other that that it looks okay. Like most of the web mail apps from Yahoo and Google. Expect that I like the drop down menus, very intuitive and easy to navigate if you use regular word possessors. They will need to add online storage to make it really useful.

  4. Re:Not likely by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Funny
    On top of everything, I just realized that this is a XUL application. i.e. It's not going to run in anything but Mozilla-based browsers. Still, you've got to love the spin:

    ajaxWrite is a streamlined word processor, comparable to Microsoft Word. To keep the program lean, we left out some obscure advanced features


    Apparently, spell checkers, word counts, arbitrary font sizes, find (there's a menu item, but it's disabled), and hyperlinks are all "obscure advanced features". Here, let me fix that for you, Mike:
    ajaxWrite is a streamlined word processor, comparable to Microsoft Wordpad.

    See? Much better. =D
    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  5. Platform-neutral downloadable web applications... by rdeadman · · Score: 5, Insightful
    We should coin a name for it. How about "applets"? Hmmm. Wait a second...

    Strange that we on Slashdot go gaga for anything AJAX while deriding Java as a slow, bloated pig. Seriously, AJAX is great for making web pages more responsive but is ill-suited as an applet replacement. Give me ThinkFree anytime.

    Flame shields up...

  6. Re:Not likely by LnxAddct · · Score: 5, Informative

    Seriously, my GMail composer has more features, including spell check, just for writing an email. This ajaxWrite just took firefox's rich text editor and threw tabbed DOMs into the picture. Completely unoriginal, there are significantly more advanced open source editors like the FCKEditor out already(That's a link to their demo, not their index just fyi).
    Regards,
    Steve