[Full story on ZDNet...]

D. Keith Robinson has written an interesting article about the future of Intranets. He writes:

"...a company's Intranet would be better served as more of an enterprise-wide, network-enabled application than anything resembling a Web site or Web application."

It seems likely that content management systems will over time integrate with office systems. Products like Microsoft's upcoming Office 11 promise to be fully XML-compatible. You will be able to save any Office document (Word, Excel, etc) as an XML file, which will add structure and portability to office data. These days Content Management systems are usually based on XML, so it could be said that office systems are just beginning to catch up. However the main difference between most CM systems today and what Office 11 will offer, is that CM systems are web-based.

So will Intranets become more of an office application than a web one? Needs more thought...but right now I like to think Intranets will remain web-based. We are only just beginning to scratch the surface of web publishing. Weblogs, RSS syndication, XML technologies such as XSLT, and web services are just some of the exciting things that can be implemented on a web-based Intranet. Plus browsers aren't dead yet - they haven't even got to the read/write stage yet ;-)

For those of us who can't make the Office 2.0 conference, there is an Office 2.0 Podcast Jam running all this week. I contributed a 5-minute podcast, which was chosen as the keynote to kick off the jam. My topic was: Why Web Office Software is a New Paradigm, Different from Desktop Office Software.

I'm not a natural podcaster (it took me quite a few takes just to get the podcast I ended up with!), but I hope I managed to cover off some of the important reasons why Web-based office software is different from the likes of Microsoft Office.

For a more enlightening and educational podcast, check out Anne Zelenka's interview with Rosemary Stasek of Women’s Campaign International. The topic, as Anne explained on her blog, is "the poor utility infrastructure in that part of the world, about how government offices do without bare necessities, and about how Rosemary is training Afghani women to speak up for themselves." Forget the gossip about Google buying Youtube (update: ok so turns out it was true!) or controversy over newspapers vs blogs, Rosemary's podcast is what it's all about and is a much needed reality check for us all.

In regards to my podcast, Anne came up with the following discussion points - feel free to discuss here or over at the Jam blog...

Discussion Questions

1. Does Office 2.0 represent a revolution, a paradigm shift? Or just incremental improvement on Microsoft Office?
2. What Office 2.0 apps and services best represent the paradigm shift of Office 2.0 to you?
3. Do you agree that Google’s web-based office apps are more evolutionary than revolutionary?
4. Should we be looking to big companies or startups for paradigm-busting apps?

"Ray Ozzie's memo indicates that Microsoft is still internally questioning the approach for Office Live. Should they web-enable traditional desktop personal productivity tools like Powerpoint? A web-based Office will be - should be - a much more collaborative suite of tools than its desktop equivalent. It won't simply be a re-hash of the desktop products - because to take advantage of the two-way, open and collaborative nature of the Web, Microsoft product designers and engineers will need to re-think Office functionality. 

Ray Ozzie more than anyone is certainly aware of that need, so it's interesting he pegs Office Live as a "portal for productivity". In the 90's a portal was known as a central place on the Web, where users could quickly access a variety of different services and websites. I think Ozzie may be extending the meaning of 'portal' to mean the Office Live suite of web-based tools and services.

The technologies he mentioned in the memo, RSS and XML, are often used nowadays to remove the necessity of a central portal website. With RSS for example, users can publish and subscribe to different forms of data. So with Powerpoint, the Office Live version of that tool could potentially become my portal to the Web for all presentation content that I have an interest in." [Read full article on ZDNet]

I'm interested in your thoughts on what Microsoft could do with Office Live, seeing as they don't appear to have settled on a plan yet.

- Morfik tests browser boundaries - builds Javascript chess app
- WebOS market review
- XIN - a Web OS that wants to be a platform
- Is Google or Microsoft best positioned for Web Office?
- Google Calendar - further progress on Google’s Web Office suite
- Review of Zimbra - a feature-laden Web Office Suite contender
- Embracing and Extending Microsoft: JotSpot’s Joe Kraus on the Web Office

I'm just getting started too, there's more to come! Say Robert, hopefully Ray Ozzie checks these out :-)

Microsoft is leaping into hosted applications big time. InformationWeek reports that Microsoft plans to offer hosted implementations of SharePoint, CRM and ERP applications. But the best quote in that article was left till last. A "Microsoft insider" was asked which other products and services Microsoft would host and the reply was: "Everything. Hosted Office. Everything hosted."

Ahem, can anyone say Web 2.0 Office? Exactly a month ago I wrote what turned out to be a very popular post entitled The Web-based Office will have its day. My main focus in that post was all of the small start-ups that are currently building web-based office apps. I forgot to mention that of course there's nothing stopping Microsoft from building their own Web 2.0 Office! Perhaps that's their only option to head off Google, because Google Office has been rumored to be around the corner for 1-2 years now... [Full Story at ZDNet]

"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?"

It's a very good question and in my latest ZDNet post I try to answer it.

[Full story at ZDNet...]

So in this week's poll we're asking if you think Google Apps Premier is a tipping point, where a web-based Office Suite has became a viable competitor to Microsoft Office - for small and large businesses alike. Or do you think otherwise? Let us know...

• Analytics 
• Base 
• Calendar 
• Co-op 
• Gmail (including GTalk)
• Page Creator 
• Personalized Homepage 
• Personalized Search 
• Spreadsheets

Google Spreadsheet

So there are 9 current Google services listed - the 6 I've highlighted are Office candidates. You can add word processing app Writely to that, which makes 7 possible Web Office suite parts. Some of the pre-beta products from the Google Labs page are possible additions in the future, as well as Labs "graduates" like Google Desktop. But let's not worry too much about what's missing (presentations and project management aren't even Google products yet). 

Writely

Indeed there's a lot of work to be done to integrate the 7 office-like products listed above. While recently Google released the oddly named Google Apps for Your Domain - which bundles together Gmail, Google Talk, Calendar and Page Creator - it's just the start of what could be done to integrate products into an office suite.

Even so it's worth looking at the current product mix, for clues to a future Google Office. In the Image Gallery I've compiled, I've focused on the 7 office-like products listed above. I've highlighted a few promising Web Office features from most of the products, even if there's work to be done by Google yet.

VIEW IMAGE GALLERY

It seems odd that Microsoft would (at least at first) exclusively sell this package through Circuit City. There doesn't seem to be any good reason to restrict the sale of Equipt to just one retailer, unless Microsoft is just trying to test the waters here to see how the public will react to a subscription service. While software subscriptions are common in the business market, consumers are used to buying their software outright, with maybe the exception of anti-virus software, which might explain the combination of OneCare and Office.

For users who already subscribe to OneCare at $49.95 a year, Equipt is a bargain at only $20 more a year. Subscribing to Equipt just for the Office package, though, might be less of a deal, especially given that Microsoft doesn't always upgrade Office every two years and that most users don't always need to have the latest version of MS Office.

Equipt clearly points in the direction that Microsoft wants to be going with software subscriptions - the question will be if mainstream users are ready.]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsoft_equipt_office_and_on.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsoft_equipt_office_and_on.php News Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:47:30 -0800 Frederic Lardinois Microsoft has today announced a new online office service called Office Live Workspace, plus re-named its Office Live service to Office Live Small Business. Both moves are attempts to complement Microsoft Office, its dominant desktop office suite - rather than replace functionality present in MS Office.

Office Live Workspace will allow users to store, access and share 1,000+ documents in an online workspace. It will also synchronize contact, task, and event lists with Outlook. The service is free and is being marketed as an "online companion to Microsoft Office". It's basically a storage solution with sharing features, intended to allow people to have one central place to store their Microsoft Office files. Certainly there is still no sign of an online version of Microsoft Word (or Excel or Powerpoint for that matter). In that respect, this doesn't challenge Google Apps. Indeed Office Live Workspace reminds me more of services such as Egnyte, which combine online storage with sharing functionality. This is something the many online storage services are also increasingly offering.

These announcements are part of Microsoft's continuing quest to offer hybrid Web/desktop office services. But the functionality still pales in comparison with what Google Apps offers - or indeed many small startups such as Zoho and ThinkFree.

It's like a halfway house - and what's more it comes with yet more branding confusion. In a press release, Microsoft Business Division President Jeff Raikes said that over the coming months Microsoft will offer "two key families of service offerings: Live and Online". Mary-Jo Foley points out that "Microsoft is positioning its Microsoft-hosted SharePoint, Exchange and Office Communications Services (which it has now rebranded with as its family of ‚ÄúOffice Online‚Ä? services) as its GAPE competitors." But it seems messy and nowhere near as coherent as Google's online office strategy.

I can't see many Microsoft customers getting excited about Office Live Workspace, given there are many startups offering better solutions - not to mention Google. And positioning this as a "web-based feature" of Microsoft Office makes it even more confusing. Is this what Microsoft's answer to the Web Office is - tacked on features to its all-powerful desktop suite? Given the innovation we've seen in Web Office over the past years by the likes of JotSpot and Writely - who truly extended MS Office with new types of functionality - Workspace is a weak 'me too' offering. Or am I missing something?

Viewer APIs

ThinkFree is also shortly going to open up its Viewer APIs, for Web Services companies to mashup Viewer into new web apps. APIs will also be made available to Web designers to integrate Viewer, meaning they can insert .doc, .xls, or .ppt files directly within a service - regardless of OS, installed apps, etc.

ThinkFree Docs set to launch

ThinkFree is also preparing to launch a new document exchange product called ThinkFree Docs, which the company describes as "Flickr for Office files". It will enable content creators to share, get feedback, read, and source office documents. This service will be launching in beta shortly - a demo of the site is up now, but it is undergoing a redesign as we speak.

Google said in July that it would be adding JotSpot to Google Apps, so this doesn't come as much of a surprise. The Google Operating System blog speculates that the launch will be timed with an announcement at this weekend's Office 2.0 event in San Francisco.

Certainly Google Apps is not as comprehensive as Zoho's suite, but adding wikis and presentations will put it on firm footing in the web office wars and extends it into areas that Microsoft Office does not tread.

	Email	Calendar	Word processing	Spreadsheets	Presentation
Google Apps	Y, Gmail	Y, Google Calendar	Y, Google D & S	Y, Google D & S	Y, Zenter + Tonic
Zoho	Y, Zoho Mail (private beta)	Y, Zoho Mail (private beta)	Y, Zoho Writer	Y, Zoho Sheet	Y, Zoho Show
ThinkFree	N	N	Y, ThinkFree Write	Y, ThinkFree Calc	Y, ThinkFree Show
Zimbra	Y	Y	Y	Y	N
Microsoft Office Live	Y	Y	N	N	N

Note: Zimbra and Microsoft Office Live don't have separate names for their apps

It's certainly over-simplifying, but it helps to get a sense of where all the main players are in creating a basic Web Office suite. Google Apps has everything but Presentations, but that is rumored to be here soon after recent acquisitions in that space. Zoho has the most complete offering so far, including many other apps not listed (Meeting, Wiki, etc). Zimbra also has an impressive offering - like Google it is only missing Presentations. ThinkFree has the main productivity apps, but it doesn't have email or calendar.

A note about Microsoft. Currently it has a number of different offerings, all under the 'Office Live' banner - there are 7 products listed on this page, including Office Live Premium and Office Live Groove. But as yet, no sign that Microsoft will risk its massive desktop Office revenues, by offering an online office suite. Indeed, that may never happen - as Microsoft attempts to create a desktop/online hybrid around its 'services' strategy.

There are signs though that Microsoft is at least experimenting - earlier this month they announced a free, ad supported version of Microsoft Works, its 'lite' office suite. However it isn't a browser-based office offering, as was rumored last year.

Here's this week's poll:

Yet, seriously now, in today's speech Eric Schmidt continued the line about Google Web Office NOT being a direct competitor of Microsoft Office. Who's he kidding? Curiously, this line of thought was continued in one of the Expo sessions I attended later in the day - where Rajen Sheth, Enterprise Product Manager, Google, also claimed they aren't competing with Microsoft. Rajen's argument was well thought out, and went as follows: competing with MS would miss the main goal for a Web-based office suite. Instead Google is starting from the ground up and building a suite of products that will leverage "the native use of the Internet". Collaboration is a killer app, and it is a different paradigm from what Microsoft Office does.

I paraphrased Rajen, but he did make a convincing case. Especially as web apps being 'web native' is a key concept we espouse here on Read/WriteWeb. So what do you think? Are Eric Schmidt and Rajen Sheth right that Google Web Office doesn't compete with Microsoft Office? Or should they fess up and admit that they have Redmond in their sights? Please tell us in the poll below: