Although still limited to users in the U.S. and Japan, participants in the Technical Preview are able to access the web versions of the Office programs through Windows Live SkyDrive, Microsoft's online cloud storage service and a part of their Windows Live suite of tools and services.

SkyDrive, which provides each user with 25 GB of online storage, is used to host the documents created using the Office Web Applications. For now, the service is entirely free. However, during our earlier interview with Takeshi Numoto, the corporate vice president of the Microsoft Office Product Management Group, we questioned him about future monetization plans for the online suite. He wouldn't confirm any details, only saying that Microsoft was "experimenting" with several options. To date, nothing has changed on that front.

At the moment, the Technical Preview is not offering full access to all the Office programs - only Word, Excel and PowerPoint are currently available. There is a placeholder for OneNote, but it displays a message reading "Still to come..." when clicked. We're told that OneNote support is due later this fall. That should be relatively soon, considering that it's already October.

The web version of Microsoft Word is also incomplete at this time, allowing you to view files but not create or edit them. Only Excel and PowerPoint allow for both read and write access at the moment.

According to Microsoft, the Technical Preview program is designed solely for the purpose of collecting user feedback prior to the broader beta release of the service. No date has been given for the beta launch as of yet but the online suite is due to ship next year alongside Office 2010, the next version of the company's desktop software suite.

How to Join

If you're interested in signing up for the Technical Preview, you'll need to establish a Windows Live ID if you have yet to do so. Hotmail and Windows Live Mail users should already have one - it's your @hotmail.com or @live.com email address. You can then sign up for the Technical Preview program via this link. As noted above, you will need to select either the United States or Japan during signup, as those are the only two countries supported at this time. After completing the sign up process and accepting the license agreement, your Windows Live ID will have access to the Web Applications by way of SkyDrive.

We got a chance to talk to Takeshi Numoto, the corporate vice president of the Microsoft Office Product Management Group, last week. He gave us more information about the Office Web applications. The web-based applications were designed to work on any browser and should even work on most mobile browsers. While some functions will only be available when Microsoft's Silverlight is available on a machine, Silverlight is not a requirement to run most features of the web applications. Numoto stressed that the apps will run on Firefox, Safari, and, obviously, IE, though Google's Chrome is suspiciously absent from this list (Stephen Elop, the head of the Office division explains why at the end of this interview).

The web applications will be tied in closely with the desktop clients, and the online storage will be managed through SkyDrive. For consumers, the web apps will be hosted on Windows Live and will be available for free, although Numoto remained tight-lipped about possible plans to monetize the apps through advertising. We could only get him to acknowledge that Microsoft was indeed 'experimenting' with various options, which we can only assume includes advertising.

Real-Time Collaboration

Another important aspect, which also ties in with a feature that Microsoft is stressing in the desktop applications of the Office suite, is the ability to collaborate on any document with various users simultaneously - including those using the web applications. While we haven't seen this in action, having a rich-text editor at hand for real-time collaboration on Word and PowerPoint documents is going to be a very exciting feature for a lot of users (however some third-party service providers who currently offer similar services will probably not be happy about this).

Enterprise: Office Web Behind the Firewall

For enterprises, Microsoft will offer two solutions. One will be hosted as part of Microsoft's Online Services. Another version, however, will be available for companies to host on their own servers on top of SharePoint. For enterprises, especially those that have long felt that cloud computing wasn't for them, this self-hosted version of the browser-based Office suite is going to be a very attractive solution, especially considering that all of Microsoft's 90 million Office annuity customers will get access to this version as a regular part of the updates that come with these volume licenses.

As Numoto told us, Microsoft believes that this will allow the company to differentiate itself from other companies that offer office solutions in the cloud. While Takeshi was careful not to mention any competitors by name, it is obvious that this is aimed at Google (and perhaps less so, startups like Zoho and ThinkFree).

Clearly, this release will be a major deal for consumers and enterprises. A free version of the browser-based Office application that easily syncs with the desktop version and allows collaboration between users on both systems is going to be a big deal.

What About the Desktop?

The desktop apps obviously also got a make-over. But compared to the shift to Office 2007, the current release features only minor cosmetic updates from what we have seen so far. The integration of the web apps looks like the most exciting addition, as well as the ribbon interface becoming standard across all the applications. Also, Microsoft is putting a lot of emphasis on real-time collaboration, and different users can now edit documents simultaneously. Alhough Numote emphasized that all edits can be reversed.

Numoto also stressed the Office team focused on improving some of the most often used features. As an example, he told us that cut and paste is obviously one of the most popular features in Office, but that Microsoft found that after pasting something into a document, the key that was used the most often afterward was 'delete.' In order to improve the cut and paste process, Office will now feature a 'cut and paste preview,' similar to the feature that Office 2007 already offers for changing styles and fonts, for example.

Outlook aficionados will also be happy to hear that the email client will now feature an option to 'ignore' unwanted threads.

While the Technical Preview, which was announced today, will only be available for a limited number of users, the beta program will be open to everybody. Microsoft expects to ship the final version of Office 2010 in the first half of 2010.

So far, we haven't had a chance to actually test-drive the desktop or web apps ourselves, but you can expect an in-depth review from us once we get access to the beta.

When adding the gadgets to iGoogle or Gmail, you won't have to enter in your Zoho account information in order to access your Zoho data. That's thanks to the oAuth support built in. In order to add a custom gadget to Gmail, you must first turn on a particular setting in labs which allows for this (Enable "Add any gadget by URL" in Labs).

Note: To learn more about custom Gmail gadgets, go here.

In social networks like Facebook and Orkut, the gadgets function more like applications. Once you click the link on the Gadgets page to add them to your profile, you'll be taken to a page where you'll need to enter in your account information before they will appear in your Applications list.

Finally, for OpenSocial compatible networks and applications, a link to an XML file is provided and for anywhere else you need a gadget, there's a generic embed code that can be used.

For anyone thinking of making the switch from Google Docs or Gmail over to the Zoho Suite, gadgets like these can make the transition easier as you'll be able to keep up with what's new even when you're still in your Google applications. And for those of us who spend entirely too much time in social networks, having these gadgets on hand means we won't miss out on the important information that matters most.

DocVerse currently consists of a 1 MB Office 2007 plug-in that gives Microsoft's desktop software new collaboration and synchronization abilities. Once installed, every time you hit the "save" button in Office, a web version stored online is automatically updated, too. The web version also comes with a link you can share.

If that part sounds a lot like what's already available in Microsoft's Live Workspace, that's because it is. Like DocVerse, Live Workspace users can also install a plugin into Office that keeps files between computer and web in sync.

However, the key difference between DocVerse and any of Microsoft's current offerings is the service's online collaboration abilities. With DocVerse, a group editing feature lets multiple users edit one copy of the same document without having to check it out, then check it back in.

To begin using the software, you can share a document with others using either the URL provided or by entering in the email addresses of those you want to share with. As changes are made, they're synced back to the online version of the document. The DocVerse software then uses a confliction resolution system to deal with any potential conflicts between the updates. As the edits continue, DocVerse automatically creates new versions of the document while saving the older versions in case you need to revert back.

DocVerse users will also see their changes categorized in an in-file "News Feed" which appears in the sidebar of any open document. For users without Office, feedback can be given about the shared files straight from their web browser.

At launch time, the plug-in works with Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 only, but support for Word and Excel 2007 will roll out later this spring as will support for Office 2003. DocVerse is Windows-only.

Some Questions

Microsoft announced the upcoming Microsoft Office Web applications at their Professional Developers Conference in October. With these web applications, due in the next version of Office (Office 14), users will be able to create, edit, and collaborate on Office documents through the browser (IE, Firefox, or Safari). Despite some initial rumors, Office Web Applications will not require Silverlight to run and they'll even  work on the iPhone via the Safari browser.

That obviously made us wonder - how will DocVerse compete with Microsoft's own offering? Says DocVerse CEO Shan Shina, the key will be backward compatibility. Where the official Microsoft Office Web Applications will focus only on the latest and greatest version of Office (he presumes - no one really knows), DocVerse will aim to be compatible with Office 2003, 2007, and the upcoming Office 14. Given that 35-40 percent of the market still runs Office 2003 and 15-20 percent runs 2007, he imagines it will be a while before everyone upgrades to Office 14 - web apps or not.

While capitalizing on the "good enough" trend, the company will also focus on how they can best complement the newer Office 14 when it becomes available. In other words, no matter what Microsoft throws out there, DocVerse plans to provide the missing features.

Try it! (Invites)

To learn more about how DocVerse works, Web Worker Daily has a great hands-on review. Our readers can try DocVerse for themselves by clicking here: http://www.docverse.com?ic=RWW. There are only 200 invites available, so that link is first come, first serve.

Disclosure: Sarah Perez also writes for Microsoft's Channel 10.

The word processor itself is rather rudimentary. There are some basic options for formatting your text, aligning it, highlighting it, etc. You can also choose to insert photos and links from the "Insert" menu or create bulleted and numbered lists. Beyond that, the tool doesn't do much in terms of word processing. Also, at the moment, the files you create can only be saved in .HTML format. Other formats like .TXT, .ODT, and .DOC will arrive in later, says the company.

If basic word processing was all that Shutterborg did, it probably wouldn't be worth a mention just yet. However, the "Open from Web" option that is presented to you upon launch is a pretty clever invention. Here, you can enter in any URL on the internet to open an exact replica of that web page, with the CSS and images intact. You can then edit it as you desire which could obviously lead to some humorous creations.

That feature alone makes Shutterborg worth a look simply because it's so easy to use. Although the resulting HTML file won't look like much if opened outside of the Shutterborg processor, it's easy enough to grab a screenshot of your mocked up creation while you have Shutterborg open. The potential for creating hilarious edits to well-known sites will certainly appeal to the creative types out there. We can't wait to see what they come up with. 

Shutterborg is a creation of developIT, a small business in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada whose focus is on developing web sites and Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) for businesses of all sizes.

Compete also compiled engagement metrics for Google Docs, which clearly indicate that the service is still mostly popular with casual users. The average user uses Google Docs about 3 times a month, a number that has held stable for the last 12 months. Interestingly, the average user only spends about 5 minutes per month on the site.

Zoho

Compete also provided us with some additional data about Zoho's office suite, one of Google Docs closest competitors. Zoho saw about 310,000 unique visitors in October, but those users spent close to 10 minutes per month on the service. While this is twice the amount of time users spent on Google Docs, Zoho's users also visit the site about 3 times a month.

Update: We also received some additional information from ClickStream Technologies . ClickStream's survey compares usage numbers for Google Docs, OpenOffice, and Microsoft Word. The results of this survey are very similar to Compete's statistics, both with regards to how often the apps were used and for how long.

Casual Users

Google Docs clearly still mostly attracts casual users. Those users who spend most of their days in word processors and spreadsheets have not switched over to web based productivity applications. About a year ago, we wrote that Google Docs wasn't ready for the enterprise, and this data from Compete shows that, a year later, it still hasn't been adopted by power users (though the Compete study did not look at enterprise and business users, who would be running Google Apps on their own domain).

However Yahoo Mail did come up with offline functionality in July - it gave offline access to all free and paid Yahoo Mail users through the Yahoo Zimbra Desktop. Earlier this week Yahoo announced further Zimbra integration, this time with its Calendar app.

So Google is well and truly behind the times with offline support for web mail. However the Google white coats are having a fine old time tinkering with mail stuff in their labs - tonight Google Labs announced Advanced IMAP Controls, which lets you "fine-tune your Gmail IMAP experience."

To be fair, Google probably isn't worried about Zoho coming out with offline functionality in its mail product before Gmail has. For one thing Google is so big it can afford to wait until it's good and ready, despite Gmail fans yearning for offline support! But also Google probably sees Zoho less as a competitor at this point (even though Zoho does compete directly against Google Apps) and more as an evangelist for its technology - such as Google Gears.

To access mail offline in Zoho Mail, you'll need Google Gears installed on your browser - at this point IE and Firefox are supported. Chrome and Safari support is coming. According to Zoho's blog, you can also download images and attachments in offline mode. Another cool feature is that Zoho Mail automatically detects your connectivity and switches to online/offline modes.

Here is the video, also available on Google Code blog:

Developers can build their own apps for free or for sale and Zoho allows them to keep 100% of the revenue from app sales. Are these apps for real? It's hard to say. We really like the idea, but Zoho is a complicated company.

As can be imagined, there's a wide range of quality in the apps in the marketplace today. In its announcement Zoho says that more than 100,000 apps have been created with its Zoho Creator database program, but it appears that only about 300 of those are included in the marketplace at launch.

It's hard to know how to find the best apps, to know which ones are effectively duplicates and we expect those issues to continue as developers flock to the platform. It's one thing to rustle through scores of sheep kissing apps on Facebook, or shiny GPS baubles in the iPhone platform - it's another to try and find apps in an office marketplace to run your business on.

Some of the app demos were loading only intermittently during our evaluation and that's not a good sign for something users are going to do business with.

Some, like HelpDesk, look strikingly robust. Others, like the very similar Issue Tracker, look downright insufficient - Issue Tracker's bug tracking app doesn't offer reporting as far as we could tell, for example.

Most of the apps in the marketplace right now are free. The variety of apps available is interesting; one called Camp Registration facilitates registration for events, includes an hour of customization and costs $150. That app can be embedded on any other website. This and all the apps in the marketplace offer a demonstration you can view before installing.

To some degree your trust in Zoho marketplace apps will likely begin as a matter of faith. Readers here presumably are willing to put some amount of trust in online apps in general. There's probably a little more skepticism about Zoho apps in particular. Zoho marketplace apps, developed by people outside the company all together, will be an even further leap of faith. Whether you can make that leap will depend in part on where you started regarding online apps in the first place.

Zoho Apps in General

Google's online office apps were expected to change the world, and by some limited accounts they've begun to. Many people, though, find Google Apps too lightweight and infrequently updated.

Zoho's office suite has faced criticism about being too lightweight but no one can say they are too infrequently updated. A July report from analyst firm the 451 Group reported that Zoho was slowing down on new product roll out and would be focusing on improvement of existing apps. That prediction appears now to be incorrect, but the rest of 451's analysis of Zoho is very useful. "At present, there's still something of a work-in-progress feel about Zoho, with some key functionalities still to come," report authors China Martens and Anne Nielsen wrote.

Ask any major CRM vendor who they're keeping an eye on in their rearview mirror, and Zoho will be among the first players they name. That's pretty impressive for a vendor that has largely relied on word of mouth and user experimentation to gain notice...The company is already well positioned to address the increasing app pricing and integration pressures from customers and has made some initial strides in establishing channel sales.

According to another report from analyst firm Yankee Group though, Zoho already offers a better enterprise collaboration suite than Google. That report tracks 16 collaboration suites head to head, further comparison results still pending.

Zoho tells a good story and is certainly an exciting company to watch, but sometimes the story gets a little more oomph than it deserves. Oliver Marks at ZDNet, for example, wrote this week that a story floating around the blogosphere that General Electric dropped Google Apps in favor of Zoho was not in fact true. Marks reports that GE is still evaluating both services and hasn't made a decision yet about either.

Conclusion: These Apps Will Work for Many People, But Not All

We love platforms, good ones are fascinating in their fecundity even if they are complicated for providers and participants. Zoho does have a lot of momentum in the small business world, so we expect there to be a lot of international developer interest. Will customers come to Zoho and stay? The price and selection are hard to beat so the company will likely win customers for whom those are primary concerns. Would-be customers who prioritize robustness may have a more mixed experience, depending on the apps they select from the marketplace.

In Part 2 of this story, we reveal some of Zoho's cookbook.

At the Web 2.0 Expo in New York last week, Jason Fried of 37 Signals, another company that has done well by defying conventional wisdom, advised entrepreneurs to "follow the chefs". He meant that great Chefs give away their recipes. That just makes you want to come to their restaurants even more. Particularly if the recipe looks complex. And Zoho's looks complex.

So I hope they won't mind me giving out the recipe they revealed when I met with Raju Vegesna, one of their founders, last week. I noted 3 major ingredients:

1. New ways of competing for talent

2. A related cash cow business

3. Pragmatic, non dogmatic approach to winning business

New Ways of Competing for Talent

If I had to select one "secret sauce" in Zoho's recipe, it would be how they recruit. Zoho (with parent company, Adventnet) has 700 developers. All the developers are in India, specifically Chennai.

India is a ridiculously competitive market for developer talent currently. I see parallels with Silicon Valley in 1999, when average developers got inflated expectations and inflated paychecks. Attrition is problem # 1.

Developers see their career path as managing other developers. Your mojo is based on how many people you manage. Managing 1,000 makes you ten times better than managing 100 and so on. This is the reverse of America where a developer will drop custom service work as soon as it is possible to work on a product.

This is a terrible environment for a product company to compete for talent. How does Zoho compete for talent in this market?

1. Hire from school. Yes, school, not college. So they don't compete to hire from final year of College or in the even more hot market of developers with a few years experience. Great code is typically written by young people - which explains a lot of the "college drop out makes $ billions" stories in America.

2. Pay one year of college fees. This is a salary, not a loan, with no strings attached. According to Raju, 90% join Zoho at the end of that year, but there is no obligation. This gives Zoho an edge with the brightest at school as they have an unusual offer.

Zoho's philosophy is that 4 years college when you are young is not right for many people. Better to have life-long learning but get real world experience early and get some cash while you are at it. This gets a big "yes" from parents paying college fees!

Zoho have their own Zoho University. This is not uncommon for big employers in India. It is a necessary complement to hiring early.

Related cash cow

Zoho has a related cash cow business that enable them to fund Zoho. This is not unlike Google. Microsoft's problem is that their cash cow - Office - is the one that both Google and Zoho are going after. That gives them one nasty Innovator's Dilemma.

Zoho's initial cash cow business is selling network management tools. This has been profitable for 12 years. Zoho itself is due to be profitable next year.

The network management tools business is doing the same as Zoho - products at least as good as the competition for a fraction of the price. This business also gives Zoho a capability for running large data centers, which is a core competency for a SaaS business.

Pragmatic, Non Dogmatic Approach to Winning Business

By all accounts, Zoho won GE's business in head to head competition with Google. GE wanted to cut cost and enable collaboration, which meant Microsoft was less of a contender. Google was the obvious "you never got fired for choosing" winner. Why did GE choose Zoho? There are two likely reasons:

1. Zoho allowed GE to run the software in their own data centers. GE has the economies of scale to run their own data centers and clearly prize the control that this enables. Zoho specified the hardware, but GE bought it and deployed it. Is a "Zoho Appliance" far behind?

2. Visual Basic Scripts in Spreadsheets. Current tech orthodoxy frowns on VB, but if you have thousands of existing Excel spreadsheets running VB that would be a show-stopper.

This is Part 1 of a 5-part series in ReadWriteWeb's Enterprise Channel. Part 1 covers everything from a physical perspective. What, ideally, you need to have to make the digital office run. In subsequent parts, we will cover browser, web apps, mobile, and more.

LAPTOP

Recommendation: The Mac Book Pro

Why?: Primarily, OS X - arguably the best operating system out there. In terms of hardware however, the MBP's form factor, strength, wireless connectivity, long battery life, speed, memory, improved graphics card, multi touch trackpad and decent sized hard drive all wrapped up in a beautiful metallic case should be enough to convince you.

Asus U2E, Sony Vaoi TZ31MN, Macbook, Macbook Air, Asus EeePC 900

PHONE

Recommendation: Blackberry Bold

Why?: Let me be clear. I'm an iPhone user and I'll openly admit I have yet to use the blackberry bold. However, I have used almost every previous blackberry and from reviews by gizmodo, engadget and a number of gadget sites - this is the best blackberry ever. However, the main reason I have selected the Blackberry Bold over the iPhone is because of the downfalls of the current 3G iPhone rather than the excellence of the Blackberry Bold. Running your digital office you need to ensure you have access to your email, contacts and a solid long lasting battery - the iPhone is still not reliable enough on both of these points. If this post was more about the Social Media Guru's device list... yes, the iPhone would definitely be my phone of choice. Although of course, with an external battery attachment! We are, however, discussing the digital office and the iPhone is not there yet and won't be until battery life is extended, bugs are ironed out, multifunctionality between local apps is implemented and yes, email and connectivity issues are corrected.

Alternatives: iPhone, Treo Pro, Nokia E66 / E71, HTC Touch Cruise

MOBILE BROADBAND

US: Sprint / AT&T

UK: O2 / T-Mobile / Vodafone / 3

The Should Haves

EXTRA BATTERY FOR MOBILE & LAPTOP

EXTRA CHARGER FOR MOBILE & LAPTOP

WIRELESS MOUSE

Recommendation: Logitech VX Nano Cordless

Why?: Stylish, small but not too small, super precise and smooth maneuvering. Very convenient to just need the small usb plugin which can be left in your laptop all the time. Above all though, it's very very cool.

Price: $45.00

Alternatives: Apple Mighty Mouse, Logitech MX Revolution

WIRELESS KEYBOARD

Recommendation: Apple Wireless Keyboard

Why?: Elegant design. Sturdy and durable. Works superbly well. Extremely accurate, (very) small and lightweight, feels wonderful as you glide your fingers across the keyboard. On top of all that, seamless operation with Leopard, Tiger AND Vista.

Price: $80.00

Alternatives: Logitech diNovo Edge, Logitech Cordless Desktop S510

EXTERNAL HARDDRIVE

Recommendation: Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB

Why?: Uprecedented amount of space for it's weight and size. It's pocket size, flawless performance and very practical - all at a fair price.

Price: $120

Alternatives: Toshiba 320GB Portable External, Iomega eGo Rugged Portable 320GB

USB DRIVE

Recommendation: Kingston DT100/8GB Data Traveler

Why?: 8GB on a usb drive! Above all, convenient, easy to use, small and reliable.

Alternatives: iPhone, HP 8GB USB Flash Drive

Price: $30

BAG

Recommendation: Incase nylon sling pack

Why?: Comfortable, solid protection and padding for your laptop, feels very well made. Lightweight and very slim - so no more smacking into people as you turnround. Works with laptops up to 17 inches. Features a lovely integrated fur compartment for your laptop as well as plenty of space for your iPod and other accessories.

Price: $80

Alternatives: Mobile Edge MEEN01 Express Tote ($30)

MOBILE PRINTER

Recommendation: Canon Pixma iP90v Photo Inkjet Printer

Why?: Small, dinky and portable. Prints pages at a decent speed and color photos come out very well if you're using it for that. Set up is a peice of cake however one drawback, make sure you have a usb cable and buy a few spare ink cartridges as they run out faster than your normal sized ones. Also, a superb price as it is currently on sale at Amazon!

Price: $200+ (currently on sale at Amazon for $151)

Alternatives: Canon iP100, HP Deskjet 460c Mobile Printer

MOBILE SCANNER

Recommendation: Canoscan LiDE 90 (PC/MAC)

Price: $90

Why?: Great value. Just over A4 in size and about 2cm in depth Completely USB powered, extremely convenient and lightweight. Resolution is up to 2400x4800 dpi and scan speeds of approx 15 seconds. Works well with both PC and Mac.

Alternatives: Scansnap USB 10PG Adf Mobile Scanner (pc/mac), Pentax DSmobile 600 Scanner (pc)

WEBCAM

Recommendation: Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000

Price: $80

Why?: Hassle free installation with XP and Vista. Superb picture quality. The Right Light function works very well even in the dullest conditions. If you want a good webcam for Skype, this is it!

Alternatives: Philips SPC900NC PC Web Camera

BLUETOOTH HEADSET

Recommendation: NoiseAssassin-Jawbone II

Price: $110

Why?: Easy to setup, slick to look at, comfortable to wear (at least in my ear). Works well with all bluetooth enabled phones and computers. Definitely does a superb job with controlling levels of background noise - just make sure the headset is actually touching your jaw or else it doesn't do it's job properly.

Alternatives: Plantronics Discovery 925

PORTABLE CAMCORDER

Recommendation: Sanyo Xacti HD1010

Price: $700

Why?: Easy to use out of the box. Brilliant quality image. Practical. Beautifull little camera. Video quality is vivid and crisp. Perfect if you want something you can pull out fast and record.

Alternatives: Samsung mx 20 "YouTube" Camcorder, Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD700

PORTABLE MEDIA PLAYER

Recommendation: iPod Touch

Price: $400

Why?: It's not perfect however you'd be hard pressed to find a better all round device at this size out there. Glorious screen quality and device build. Setup is elegant and straight forward as you would expect. Navigation is equally impressive. Youtube is so easily accessible, accessing e-mails works flawlessly, battery lasts well to listen to music but runs low fast when on the youtube or internet. For such a small thing it can do so much: Games, Calendar, Mail, Internet, Music, Movies, Apps... What are you waiting for? The only real competition in my mind is the iPhone.

Alternatives: Archos 605 Wifi, Microsoft Zune

HEADPHONES

Recommendation: Shure Se210 Sound Isolating Earphones

Price: $130.00

Why?: Perfect to travel with and maybe even miss your flight! Shure's Se210 are in a completely different league. Having used a variety of high spec headphones over the years, Shure stands well above the crowd. An amazing piece of ingenuity. The clarity is astonishing, hearing notes I previously did not. The mid's and high's are exceptional, and the bass is perfect.

Alternatives: Sennheiser CX 95, Klipsch Image

USB HUB

Recommendation: Any Brand

Price: -

Why?: Frankly, I have personally bought a number of USB hubs from ebay over the years and have yet to have one problem. I highly recommend going for the cheapest option which ever that may be. If you're a brand fan and looks are a very high priority however, the two options below should suit you fine

Alternatives: Belkin Hi-Speed USB 2.0 7-Port Mobile Hub, Cables To Go 7 Port USB

3 PLUG ADAPTOR

Recommendation: Monster 4 Outlet Mini Power Strip

Price: $15.00

Why?: Handy. There is always a shortage of power points when you need one. This compact power strip is a perfect for travel and obviously a doddle to use.

The Unnecessaries but Oh So Cool

LIVESCRIBE SMART PEN

What is it? A smart pen that digitally records everything you write and hear. You do however require special paper embedded with thousands of almost invisible dots for the pen to work - these are only $5 for a set of pads though. The recordings are transferred to a computer through a USB docking cradle. Notes can even be shared online and Livescribe gives 250 MB of storage space for free.

Price: $149 for the 1 GB version or $199 for the 2 GB model.

APPLE AIRPORT EXPRESS

What is it? A tiny adaptor size device whicn you plug it into your room's socket, plug in the hotel's Ethernet cable and voila, you have wifi.

Price: $80

Alternative: Linksys WTR54GS

AMAZON KINDLE

What is it? Essentially, an e-book reader launched by Amazon. It uses an electronic paper display and reads Amazons propriertary Kindle format (AZW) and downloads ebooks directly from Amazon.com.

Price: $359

Alternatives: Sony Reader

Next in the Series

Part 2: The Browser. How the browser will increasing play a vital part in the development of digital office. This post will be a run down of tips, tricks and features to make the browser work for you and your team.

Part 3: Web Apps, Desktop Apps & Integration. This will revisit the deskapp to webapp conundrum and the recent developments which have quite possibly sealed the argument.

Part 4: Tools & Services both Online & Off. An illustration of the best tools and services out there which combine to create the digital office.

Part 5: Portability, the iPhone & Mobile Web. This will cover portability and the mobile web, in putting the finishing touches to the new work way.

Top image credit: moriza

In Google Docs, using these new tools would be a lot easier if Google had included them in the right-click menu or provided keyboard shortcuts for them.

Some More Important Features are Still Missing

Also, one feature that is still sorely missing and could make Google Docs a real alternative to Word for students is support for footnotes and endnotes. Both Zoho and Thinkfree Online already have support for these features.

Also, more and more students and college campuses are switching over to Microsoft Office 2007 and Google Docs can still not read the native Office 2007 .docx files. We can see why Google would object to this file format, but not supporting it only complicates matters for a lot of students.

It is somewhat strange that Google is partnering with these relatively old-fashioned companies, especially at a time when Google itself is replacing these already for a lot of students.

New Features

Among the new features is a re-designed commenting function, which now displays comments from different editors with colored backgrounds. Also new in this version is the ability to view two pages of a document side-by-side, which, given the size of a lot of modern screens, is a welcome addition.

Other new features include a zoom function in the status bar for both the spreadsheet and word processing applications, the ability to create larger spreadsheets, and a presenter mode in Impress.

OpenOffice can open and write documents in the OpenDocument format. It can also read Microsoft Office 2007 files, but it does not have the ability to write them.

More Love for Mac Users

For Mac users, the new version also brings some welcome updates. Most importantly, the new version does not rely on X11 anymore, but finally uses the native graphics libraries of OSX and adheres to Apple's HCI guidelines.

It's Not Office 2007

We have been long-time users of Microsoft's Office 2007 on the PC now, and as much as we love open-source software and open standards, going back to OpenOffice feels a bit like a trip back in time. If you are still using a older version of Office, you will probably feel right back at home in OpenOffice 3, but we do not see a lot of Office 2007 users go back to OpenOffice.

The Ribbon bar in Office 2007 represents a major productivity enhancement and having to search your way through long drop-down menus again just feels slow and old-fashioned at this point.

The sessions highlighted in this post are Going 100% SaaS and Meeting without traveling. I also reviewed Joblogs, a CRM "relationship and management lite".

This was the session I really wanted to see the roll call of panelists was;

• Gadi Shamia (Revongo)
• Daniel Druker (Intacct)
• Doug Harr (Ingres)
• Robert Hull (Adaptive Planning)
• Jeff Schultz (Bill.com)

Not surprisingly the recent Debes article came up - the crowd, again not surprisingly, was dismissive of Debes contentions about the imminent demise of SaaS as a model.

First question was why aspire for 100% SaaS?

The panelists agreed that SaaS gives functionality to SMBs that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to access. There was also agreement around the enabling benefits of SaaS apps. Why build a data center or expensive traditional software when it's so much more readily accessible and cheaper via SaaS?

In response to a question from the floor about whether or not SaaS is actually cheaper or whether that is just a marketing spin, Doug Harr from Ingres gave the example of a Siebel implementation for 150 salespeople that cost $1.5million. His new company implemented Salesforce.com which cost $140k/year for 130 users.

Another question from the floor raised security concerns for large businesses - the panelists agreed that they had no real concerns about their data being in the cloud.

What sort of business is more likely to adopt SaaS? - not surprisingly the panelists felt technology companies were prime candidates, also service companies, young companies and rapidly growing organizations. Phil Wainewright brought up the issues around large businesses not going with SaaS due to their already sunken costs - again Doug Harr gave a great example where true total cost of ownership analysis can bring up surprising results - the costs and hassles with the old school behemoth software offerings are often sufficiently high to outweigh the monthly costs of a SaaS alternative.

Discussion around integration - feeling was at this point in time it's acceptable but this is where the growth will come from  - creating pseudo best-of-breed total solutions via integration of diverse offerings.

To be honest, given the fact that this conference is meant to be about visioning the future - it was a surprise that so much time was taken in justifying SaaS as a model - it would have been nice to see more time spent on a picture of what a truly 100% SaaS ecosystem would look and feel like - maybe next year....

Meeting without traveling

A panel discussion that the Twitterverse was no doubt interested in - check out the Twitter cred of the participants;

• Robert Scoble (Fast Company)
• Guillaume Cohen (Veodia)
• Gary Griffiths (LiteScape)
• Loic Le Meur (Seesmic)
• Alain Mowad (Polycom)

The panelists introduced themselves and their businesses/offerings. The panel ranges across the spectrum from super hi quality Cisco Telepresence systems down to Seesmic for low quality ad hoc solutions like Seesmic.

Loic Lemeur announced that Twhirl will include video within the next two weeks. He discussed the fact that video allows relationships to be formed around the world without actual presence - it brings people closer together.

Robert told of WalMart's ability to buy fabric internationally over video conferencing the quality is so high.

Cohen told of the savings that video conferencing brings - gas, time, environmental etc. People can work remotely easily - so long as the video integrates tightly with their existing workflow processes - people feel more comfortable giving feedback over video than "in the flesh". Veodia does all the hard work in the background and serves up one button for users to push - delivering up the best quality that the connection available can give.

Mowad says that Polycom is much more focused on real time video sharing - gives examples of tele-medicine and tele-education.

Questions from the floor.....

What are the coolest things the tools could have?

• Someone who has video on 24hrs a day when she works remotely - a sense of intimacy when they're not there
• How do you create a technology that becomes so immersive that one feels that they're "really there"
• Video brings an experience as close as possible to real life
• Video enables Seesmic to run an international development team with real time collaboration

How can video-conferencing work when their are larger teams?

• Remote controlled monitors that move depending on who is talking!
• There's a threshold beyond which video conferencing just doesn't work - 9 or 10 people perhaps?
• There is a perception of presence - the host of offerings - audio, video, IM etc build up a feeling of intimacy that means that the group feel together - even if the camera is focusing on someone else at the time

Discussion ensued about the fact that going forward the ability to catalogue the audio from a video stream - allowing for searching and text string recognition.

Joblogs launches!

I took the opportunity to meet this morning with Steve Ireland from Joblogs - a startup out of Canada which launched their offering today.

Joblogs is most readily described as CRM, relationship and management lite. It serves up a nice, intuitive and quick workspace which allows for the aggregation of contact information, email and documents and links and stakeholder comments all in one location. Their name is a mashup of Job and Blogs - not blogs in the traditional sense but in the sense of being enablers of two way communication and idea collaboration.

It's a good solution for anyone handling large number of customer interactions - service based industries being the most obvious - anyone that requires daily coordination of a dynamic set of different data streams.

It goes out to general release on Monday 9 September and has been bootstrapped via subscription from a previous offering. Joblogs puts their specific points of difference as;

• Non-obstructive user interface (e.g. no save or cancel buttons, and of course no page refreshes)
• Customizable databases with drag and drop
• Private blogs with that serve as a point of collaboration for business projects
• Arbitrarily relate different records together
• Email dropbox that automatically links messages to associated contacts, companies and projects

Here's a screencast of the product:

And it's over!

Sitting in the last session of the conference with organiser Ismael Ghalimi going over the tools used to run the entire operation - 500 physical attendees and a couple of thousand virtual ones. All planned and arranged in a couple of months - it's been a whirlwind.

Overall it's been great to be around a bunch of people who "get it" - understand the cloud and what it can bring to business going forwards.

If I had any criticism it would be that a lot of time was spent talking about where we are at - not so much time spent envisioning the future. Obviously with a number of vendors present this isn't a surprising fact - but nonetheless it would have been great to have some vision sessions that were vendor agnostic.

Anyway... thanks to all the attendees, thanks a bunch to Ismael and his team and I look forward to seeing you all again next year.

No matter which department you're in, Web 2.0 technologies have had an impact. If you've been ignoring their prevalence and adoption, you're at risk of falling behind in your career and your business is at risk of losing ground to its competitors who are tuned into this trend.

Here at ReadWriteWeb, we deliver news about Web 2.0's impact on business in addition to news about web technologies in general. Depending on your area of interest, you can find a lot of great information on this subject in our archives. Or simply bookmark this post for easy reference.

Document Collaboration Suites

GroupSwim is an innovative company which has created an intelligent community building and collaboration SaaS solution. They aim to connect individuals and build knowledge utilizing social based methodologies. Read more.

DreamFactory's suite of Enterprise 2.0 applications consists of a Project Management module, a Time and Expense Module, a Document Manager, and a Team Calendar. Originally, the company was available on Amazon Web Services, but now DreamFactory's software will be available on Intuit's QuickBase platform, too. Read more.

Box.net offers collaboration functionality which allows any Box.net user can invite collaborators to any folder in their account. The collaboration feature is also fully compatible with all the OpenBox services, which extends online collaboration beyond just word processor documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, similar to what Google Docs currently offers. Read more.

The term groupware refers to applications that facilitate real-time communication, coordination and collaboration amongst groups of people. A number of startups are working hard to develop the nascent groupware market, so in this post we identify some of those startups and provide an overview of where the market is heading...read more.

What's the Deal With Wikis?

Only a handful of years ago, it was common to hear people laugh at Wikipedia. Anyone can edit it! How could you take it seriously? These days, just as blogs are, wikis are on their way to winning a reputation as serious publishing platforms. Wikis are now serious business. Read more.

Atlassian Confluence, makers of one of the most popular enterprise wiki solutions, offers Microsoft Office and SharePoint integration in their release of the Confluence 2.9 software. With these new tools, users no longer have to know the technicalities of wiki markup or even how to use the included rich-text WYSIWYG editor in order to make changes to the wiki - they can simply open up a Microsoft Office document instead. Read more.

WetPaint, a popular hosted Wiki solution, provides person-to-person and private messaging between users of their Wiki network. This means that Wetpaint Wiki users can now send single or multi-person private messages, to connect and collaborate with others about their interests. This post introduces wikis and discusees who is using them and for what purpose.First, wikis are described and then the range of wiki products in the market right now is explored. Read more.

Leave it to people in the wiki market to know how to collaborate. Nearly 20 different wiki providers have teamed up to offer a new Firefox extension that will notify users whenever they are on a page that is publicly editable, using a standard icon that sits in the same place the RSS autodiscovery icon appears. Clicking on the icon (img. on the left) will take you to that page's editing interface. Read more.

What's Office 2.0?

Web Office Defined: A Web Office suite is a combination of productivity, publishing and collaboration features. A Web Office both embraces the functionality of desktop office suites (e.g. Microsoft Office) and extends it by using Web Native features. Read more.

The State of Office 2.0: Over the past 10 years, Corel, Sun, IBM and others have tried to compete with Microsoft in the office software business, but thus far none of them have been able to take a significant chunk of Microsoft's large market share, which generates revenues exceeding $15 billion each year. These companies have tried everything; including Sun open sourcing their StarOffice suite and releasing it as the free OpenOffice. Yet, even this very compelling move has not been able to make a serious dent in the market. Read more.

Microsoft announced their Office Live Workspace is publicly available for everyone to access. The site, a free web-based extension of Microsoft Office, lets you access your documents online and share your work with others. Some say that the service's launch is a direct response to Google's entry into the web office space with their Google Docs online service. If that's so, then the question now is: did Microsoft just trump Google Docs? Or does Google Docs still rule online office suites? Read more.

The Web Office was a market that underwent a lot of changes in 2007. Our definition of Web Office is: A Web Office suite is a combination of productivity, publishing and collaboration features. A Web Office both embraces the functionality of desktop office suites (e.g. Microsoft Office) and extends it by using Web Native features. The 2007 year in review: Read more.

This is the perspective of a "skeptical, later early adopter"; the sort of person who Microsoft needs to retain and should have been able to retain easily. I don't spend time on productivity tools that may at some date make me more productive, but which today are just a frustrating time sink. That describes the majority of people. MS Office can be annoying, but it does work. So any serious alternative has to offer a significant advantage and at the same time make adoption a total breeze. Read more.

EditGrid, the main product of HongKong-based company Team and Concepts (TnC) Ltd., is a leading Web 2.0 online spreadsheet service that focuses on online collaboration and interoperability. Read more.

eXpresso was named as one of PC World's 25 Most Innovative Products of the Year for 2007. PC World succinctly summed the product up: "[it] allows Excel users to share their spreadsheets, online or off." eXpresso is different from the web office contenders that you normally hear about on ReadWriteWeb for three reasons...Read more.

Zimbra is looking to expand its platform to the iPhone. Recently they announced Zimbra Mobile for iPhone 2.0. Zimbra Mobile for iPhone 2.0 will allow iPhone users over-the-air two-way synchronization of e-mails, calendar, contacts, and photos between user mailboxes and mobile devices, and seamless "push" e-mail service for all Zimbra Collaboration Suite users. Read more.

News from the Office 2.0 conference in San Francisco, 2008. Read more.

What's Happening in the Enterprise 2.0 Space?

A report released by Forrester Research is predicting that enterprise spending on Web 2.0 technologies is going to increase dramatically over the next five years. This increase will include more spending on social networking tools, mashups, and RSS, with the end result being a global enterprise market of $4.6 billion by the year 2013. Read more.

Enterprise 2.0 is Happening: If you're a business who has been ignoring the Web 2.0 trend and the spread of social media: look out, the tide is shifting and you're about to be left behind. The rise of social media didn't happen overnight, the power of the internet to unite people, the ubiquity of broadband, the rise of Gen Y, the development of new technologies for socializing on the web - all of these things and more have led to the rise of social media. And this new force is affecting change in the way that companies do business - now and for many years to come.

The break-up of behemoth, vertically integrated enterprises commenced in the 1970's, got a boost from junk bond financing in the 1980's, and accelerated in the 1990's with globalization. Now, late in the 2000's, Social Media (aka Web 2.0) is adding another gear that will accelerate the fundamental restructuring of the enterprise. Read more.

Most enterprise software sucks. That is my considered opinion from 30 years in the software biz. Words that come to mind are: bloated, inflexible and user hostile. The good news is that it is getting better, a lot better. The driver for change is what I call the consumerization of enterprise software. These new software champions typically have some if not all of these 8 main attributes...Read more.

The Enterprise 2.0 Launch Pad program is a program that allows companies to showcase their products and compete for the opportunity to present their ideas to the community at this year's Enterprise 2.0 Conference. This competition, organized by Stowe Boyd, began in April when companies were invited to post their video pitches to the E2 web site. After the community voted, the list of contenders was narrowed down to five finalists who will now compete for the final spot. For that grand prize winner, the prize is free exhibit space at the upcoming conference. Read more.

SharePoint to run Enterprise 2.0? 9 companies are saying "yes," having recently launched Enterprise 2.0 offerings that integrate with SharePoint technology. If there's one thing that any I.T. pro knows it's the value of "maximizing their investment" in whatever servers they run, technology they use, or services they've signed up for. With strict budgets in place, no I.T. purchases are bought on a whim. Instead, each decision is researched, tested, thoughtfully considered, and, if worthy, purchased, then rolled out to become a part of the I.T. infrastructure. SharePoint is no exception. Read more.

Is 2.0 Affecting My Industry?

Yes! Check out the examples below of Web 2.0's impact on various industries and fields.

Finance/Banking

Google is announced that after more than a year of work on the problem, Google Finance is now offering real-time price quotes for any stock traded on NASDAQ. Read more.

Strands, the recommendation and lifestreaming service we've written about here before, announced a much anticipated deal that will put it in the driver's seat for financial recommendations served up to millions of online banking customers around the world. The company's recommendation test-case in music is no longer all they will be known for around the world. Read more.

We reported on a survey that revealed that 48% of online banking customers between the ages of 18 and 34 would be interested in using "secure gadgets for personal banking" if their bank offered them. More than a quarter of bank customers would consider switching to another bank if it took better advantage of web 2.0 technologies. While that survey was flawed in some ways, there is another access point to banking information that customer may want more than secure widgets: mobile. Read more.

48% of Bank Customers Want Web 2.0 Gadgets. WorkLight, a startup that offers enterprise 2.0 products, recently did a survey among Facebook users to find out their willingness to use Web 2.0 tools for secure banking. The survey was conducted among 1000 Facebook users between the ages of 18-34. The fact that the survey was conducted among Facebook users gives it a bias towards tech-savvy people. However there are some surprising findings. Read more.

Accounting

Online Accounting: State of the Market: Accounting software for small business and personal use is increasingly moving from the desktop to online. However, compared to other office software, this transition to online has been relatively slow. Partly that's due to user reticence: writing a document online and sharing it with others (via Google Docs, Office Live, Zoho, or whatever you use) is one thing. Entering sensitive financial information into your browser is harder to adjust to. Read more.

Project Management

Add this one to your web office toolkit - LiquidPlanner is an online, hosted project management tool that lets you access and update projects anywhere you have an internet connection. The service offers you and your team a complete project environment, social networking and collaboration features, and a probabilistic scheduling engine which tells you the probability of completing each task - and ultimately the entire project - by a certain date. With everything organized into a centralized dashboard that can be customized for each team member, everyone on your team can stay focused on their tasks and how they relate to the project as a whole. Read more.

The Clarizen project management software came out of stealth mode last year and has now just launched a new version with additional features. The latest version, Clarizen v 2.0, will be demoed at the "Under the Radar Conference," an event held on Microsoft's campus whose current theme is "The Business of Web Apps: Where the Web Goes to Work." Read more.

Enterprise 2.0 is a rapidly growing trend that takes the concepts and tools of social media (social networking, RSS, wikis, blogs, etc.) and re-purposes them for business use, wrapping them up into applications that make the tools at work seem more like the tools we use in our day-to-day lives. While these enterprise 2.0 apps give us that web 2.0 feel, it's rarer to see actual Web 2.0 services like Facebook or Twitter used by businesses. And although we've seen many people promoting the business use of Twitter, we had not yet heard about anyone actually going so far as to integrate Twitter into a non-consumer focused application. However, that's just what Joint Contact has done. Their PM tool now shows how tweeting can actually be a productive activity. Read more.

37Signals offers a range of applications, from simple, single-function apps like Ta-Da Lists (to-do lists), Writeboard (collaborative word processor), and Campfire (group chat) to more complicated apps like Basecamp (project management) and Highrise (group contact manager). Read more.

Health

Health 2.0, web-based apps and services for the healthcare sector, is a nascent but potentially huge market for web 2.0. As of now, many of these apps have an emphasis on communication, information sharing and community. These are relatively easy things to address using Web tools. However we're starting to see health 2.0 apps try to tackle the enormous inefficiencies in the healthcare system - check out our description of Carol.com below. Also, in the longer term, we will see the Web being used in medical diagnosis and practice. Read more.

The Health 2.0 Conference is reviewed here and some of the health web apps that caught our eye as well as trends that are discussed. Read more.

Google announced the public availability of Google Health, after initially launching as a closed beta back in February. It is described as "a safe and secure way to collect, store, and manage [your] medical records and health information online" and is being positioned as a way for users to control their own medical records. Read more.

HR

Traditional resumes are boring. They become stale and out-of-date, they can't really showcase your work or achievements, and they end up just sitting in the bottom of someone's inbox. A paper resume, while professional, doesn't really let an employer get to know you. Many sites are trying to solve the problems of traditional resumes by providing job seekers a new way to stand out in the crowd. Read more.

The iPhone has been making headway in its battle to become a business-ready tool. Obviously, the addition of Microsoft Exchange support was a big step towards being considered a viable alternative to the traditional smartphones used at work, like Blackberry and Windows Mobile. However, beyond simply supporting enterprise email, the iPhone platform has a lot of potential to cater to the needs of its business users, too. Read more.

LinkedIn has an audience that is both younger (41 vs 48) and richer ($106k vs $98K). LinkedIn was also naturally crowing about their growth (189% for year ending Oct. '07) and the chart from Nielsen which shows comparative Facebook growth at 125%. Note that Facebook growth is from a higher base and the law of large numbers applies, but Facebook has always crowed about their growth rates vs the larger MySpace, so they have to live with growth rate comparisons to LinkedIn now. Read more.

Marketing

Viral marketing, user-generated content, online buzz: over the past few years, these terms have been representative of a new way of marketing to consumers that takes advantage of the current popularity of the social web. This new technique involves companies encouraging its customers to create content of their own in order to generate interest in the company's brand. Unfortunately, one of the potential side effects of this strategy is the potential for negative buzz. Despite this fact, a surprisingly low percentage of marketers are monitoring for negative responses. Read more.

Using the new pilot program from a company called Involver, Kiva launched a video campaign on Facebook to draw users to their site to lend directly to these developing nations. The video even features a button that appears at the end of the video encouraging you to "lend" money. Read more.

Mobile marketing startup, TextBound, has big plans to make text messages the new mass media for advertisers. Like we mentioned earlier, more and more companies are going to be betting on location based mobile ads this year, and TextBound hopes to capitalize on this trend. But unlike mobile social network/marketing vehicle, Fluc, TextBound isn't about connecting with your friends, it's about delivering ads to your cell phone via text message, then taking you to the mobile web for more details. Read more.

Recently, HiveLive announced a new partnership with Responsys, a marketing firm whose client list includes some big-name brands like Apple and Salesforce.com. Enterprise 2.0 is sure to follow. What Responsys offers their customers are on-demand email and marketing solutions that can be anything from web sites to email to mobile. With the new partnership with HiveLive, they can expand that offering to include enterprise social networks. Read more.

Widget platform Clearspring has an ad network that will allow widget publishers to monetize their widgets with advertising. The ads run inside widgets and come in a variety of formats. Clearspring has already inked deals with some of their largest widget publishers to run ads, including the NHL, 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate Films, Blockbuster, and Virgin Mobile. Read more.

Here are some of the sessions I've enjoyed today, including the Google keynote, Project Management 2.0, and Money 2.0 (with video embedded below)...

Matthew Glotzbach (Google Enterprise) listed the ten things that he can do in the clouds today that he couldn't do a year ago. It was a very Google centric presentation - but nonetheless a good reminder of how far we've come in a short space of time. Matthew's list included:

1. Having access to everything on the go - iPhone
2. Being able to search through all my email - Gmail
3. Chatting with customers and partners - in any language - Matthew gave a very cool live demo of inline translation of chat!
4. Collaborating simply Google products Sites and Docs
5. Organising travel - (the only non Google product making the top 10 - TripIt)
6. Easily collecting data from co-workers and customers using Google forms
7. Building a scalable business application on the cloud platform
8. Using online templates for docs, spreadsheets and presentations
9. Running fast, secure and stable web apps (Chrome)
10. Securely sharing video in apps with Youtube for Google apps

There was lots of backchat on Twitter from attendees that it was very much a Google pitch, however it has to be said that if Google is at the forefront of cloud computing then they have a right to crow about it.

Project Management 2.0

Fellow blogger Zoli Erdos moderated the panel. The panelists were:

Dean Carlson (Viewpath)
Andrew Filev (Wrike)
Bruce Henry (LiquidPlanner)
Mark Mader (Smartsheet.com)
Guy Shani (Clarizen)

It was interesting that there didn't seem to be a huge amount of differentiation in the offerings - they're all perhaps fighting for the same customers.

Comments were raised around PM 2.0 bringing the end of siloed information. Participants claimed that no one is a project manager anymore - everyone is a manager, responsible for tasks.

Differentiation was drawn between mass scale PM projects that need Gantt charts, top down control massive documentation with the 99% of PM work where PM isn't needed. New way of thinking around a federated PM model where users can work in whatever way is best for them and behind the scenes the information is federated backwards and forwards between apps.

The feeling was that project managers today spend their time battling with crappy software - PM2.0 releases them to do real project management instead of being a project secretary.

The main takeaway and one which I concur with, is that no one player will replace the incumbent product (Microsoft Project), rather there will be an ecosystem of varied flavors of PM applications that all have a share of the market.

Money 2.0

I'm biased here as I moderated this panel. However feedback from participants and attendees indicated that the panel was really rewarding. We were a little time-compressed as the previous session had run late. The participants were;

Aaron Forth (Mint.com)
Marc Hedlund (Wesabe)
Justin Kitch (Intuit)
Jeff Schultz (Bill.com)
Mike McDerment (FreshBooks)

It was hard moderating a panel which was so polarised between the consumer and business space but notwithstanding that it went pretty well. The audience was a little jaded but the participants appeared to enjoy themselves and said they got something out of it. It was great to be around the real players in this space. There was some excellent discussion around what the Money ecosystem will look like in a few years time - the value to be gained once the connectedness is all pervasive.

Check out the video from the panel below

Tonight is a party that is being hosted by Zoho - they're announcing a couple of exciting things, one product based and one not. It'll be yet another chance to enjoy the backchannel conversations that happen at an event like this.

You can follow Ben's coverage of Office 2.0 on his personal blog diversity.net.nz.