The web-based office suite market is getting crowded

We've already got Google, Zoho, and ThinkFree, but now the market for Web-based office suites seems to be exploding.  This week Microsoft announced "Microsoft Office Live Workspace" which as best I can tell is a hosted version of SharePoint, allowing users to store and share documents with others, however MOLW doesn't include document creation capabilities of its own, rather one must use another editor.  And now we get news that Adobe has bought Virtual Ubiquity, owners of the Buzzword web-based office suite.

Why all this interest in a market dominated by Microsoft Office?  Perhaps vendors finally believe that the world is ready for web-based document management and creation services?  I'm still not convinced.  The average user will likely stick with Microsoft products, while the tech-savvy user will move to OpenOffice, Symphony or NeoOffice.  The real question is whether or not small groups of users will use on-line document sharing services rather than continue to rely on e-mail to forward copies of documents around to each other.  On that last point, I still need to be convinced.

 

Comments

[Robin Wauters]

You will be convinced soon ;)