Peepel: New Web Office Suite
Peepel.com today announced the Beta launch of its Online Office Suite, entering a competitive market alongside existing vendors like Zoho, ThinkFree, Zimbra - not to mention Google's growing Web Office suite.
Peepel claims to differentiate itself by being "the only competitor offering a true multiple windows system in an online desktop." Users can open as many applications, files and tools as they wish "in multiple, resizable PeepelWindows on the same PeepelDesktop in the one browser window." They aren't pop-ups and can be resized, moved, stacked or cascaded.
The Peepel suite includes Peepel WebSheet (online spreadsheet), Peepel WebWriter (online word processor) and Peepel Desktop (a virtual desktop running in a web browser). Also Peepel WebMaps is "very near to release." As with most of its competitors, Peepel is free to use.
Other interesting features include the PeepelPanel (which changes depending on which application is active), the Peepel TaskManager (used to make a window active) and the Peepel WorkSpace Manager (used to return to a desktop, as it was the last time it was saved).
Initial Impressions
Peepel is an interesting new entrant to the Web Office suite space, however at this point it looks to have some key limitations. For example importing of files is not available as yet. Also sharing of files with other users is unavailable. Plus there is a limit to your storage space (unspecified) and the individual file size limit is 2Mb. So it has a fair bit of catching up to do with Zoho, ThinkFree, Zimbra and Google - all of which are established and sophisticated Web Office suites.
However Peepel does have an offline work mode, which is "in alpha stage". Also it works in both Firefox and IE (no word on whether it supports Apple OS). In my initial tests, it performed well and has a slick, very usable interface.
One other note. The terms and conditions sound overly harsh:
"Peepel reserves the right to cancel anyones account at any time for any reason.
Peepel reserves the right to change terms at any time without notification to the user."
I don't know about you, but I'm not comfortable putting my office files into a service that can cancel my account "at any time for any reason."
Conclusion
Overall it is an interesting new entrant, although at this point seems to fall short of its competition in several key features (file importing, sharing, APIs - to name the ones that immediately stand out). But I will test it out some more. Let us know in the comments what you think...
Peepel menu
Peepel multiple windows
Word processing
Spreadsheet
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Richard: it works just fine on a Mac in Firefox (haven't tried it in Safari yet). The windowing is very slick and the performance is quite snappy. Also, they have done a good job with the context menus (right- or control-click depending on platform) which are traditionally difficult to get right in browser-based apps.
Your observations about Peepel's limitations are spot on but I agree that this is a nice beginning. It "feels" very different from most web-based applications.
Looks very slick. However, the terms and conditions are truly a deal killer. I hope that they realize their mistake and change them. They have absolutely no reason not to offer terms and conditions similar to their competitors, especially as a new entrant. Maybe it's just boilerplate legalese that they pasted in there.
Seriously - with T&C like that - why even bother
I just had an email exchange with the Peepel guy and he said that their terms and conditions are currently comparable to Google, but that he will be looking into making them better with the lawyers if possible. He says that Google has supposedly language similar to the one they currently use. I am sure this will be ultimately resolved to something acceptable in par with existing competitors. Just wanted to amend my previous post in that regard...
Hi - thanks for the positive review.
We have updated the terms and conditions.
At the moment Peepel does not support Safari, but it is something that we will be looking at further down the track. At the moment we are recommedning that Mac users use Firefox on the mac.
Can you really take a product seriously that has the word "pee" in its name?
Thanks for your post! "Peepel claims to differentiate itself by being "the only competitor offering a true multiple windows system in an online desktop."
They are not the only one. Refer to a.o.: http://www.ajaxlaunch.com/ajaxwrite/
Another "Me Too"... whatever happened to being creative?
So, why didn't they wait to have it all ready before posting it? I never understood why people release half assed stuff. I would have at least finished the inport function.
I thought Microsoft put a patent on the 'Ribbon' they use in their 2007 office suite. Clearly peepel is infringing that
Anyone can get a royalty-free license to use the MS
Office 2007 'ribbon'. See here for details http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/11/21/licensing-the-2007-microsoft-office-user-interface.aspx
This is the layout choice that is needed in Writely/Google Docs. Not having a header/footer or page number option is limiting.