Are you losing track of the plethora of WebOffice applications? I certainly am, as a matter of fact, today I just said half-jokingly that soon we will need a directory of all Web 2.0 directories, let alone app’s.
My favorite editor so far has been Writely, but that may very well be by pure chance, since I tried Writely first. I recently checked out the Zoho writer, and liked it. Zoho has been the first one (as far as I know) to come out with a cool Web Spreadsheet application, which btw. is not only function-rich, but also esthetically pleasing. Sooner or later I’ll spend some time checking out their Virtual Office. There hasn’t been a lot in the area of presentations though, the only one I am aware of is Thumbstacks – a simplified presentation app, without the fancy animation ..etc effect, but more than enough for a typical presentation. Obviously all these applications are web-based, and so are the data files that create (in sharp contrast to AjaxWrite, AjaxSketch ..etc which are not true Web 2.0 apps, since they can only save your work on a local harddisk). That actually presents a potential problem where one’s digital life is stored on several sites and not easily shared between applications: some of the online storage services like Box.net Omnidrive, Openomy ..etc (sorry guys, can’t list all, there’s too many of you 
)
The entire landscape changed today – at least for me it was today, when on the Qumana blog I read about ThinkFree. The South Korea-based company claims to have “The Best Online Office on Earth” (affirmatively, not just probably…
).
ThinkFree handles documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and is compatible with MS Office file formats. You can create / save / share new documents, or upload existing Microsoft ones. Oh, have I mentioned the 1G free storage? I haven’t had the time to test all features in detail, but I think the fact that the first complete WebOffice exists is significant, and the initial reviews are positive.
Update (4/30): Of course while we’re all caught up in the WebOffice craze, it doesn’t hurt to remember that a lot of Net-users are still stuck in dial-up prison, like Vinnie is now, in India..
Update (5/1): It just occured to me that a combination of ThinkFree (MS
Office replacement) and Central Desktop
(Online Collaboration, “wiki without the wiki”) is likely to be a
perfect online combo for most small businesses. I’ll cover the latter
in another post.
Tags:
Office, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Writely, Zoho,
Thumbstacks, box.net, Omnidrive, Openomy, Qumana, Central Desktop, Collaboration, wiki
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