I have recently being perusing some blogs and articles on the matter of a Web Office, and whether Google or Microsoft will be the first to deliver. Personally I think its a bit a moot point for the moment as there are too many obstacles in the way such as social issues, bandwidth and the usual office politics.
Indeed we are making nice headway with technologies like AJAX that pave the platform for the Web Office, and Google have launched Google Apps, which honestly is little more than a few light-weight web apps with basic functionality. Microsoft also seem to be pushing this way with tighter web intergration in existing Office products, and its Live suite of software.
There is much speculation as to whether Microsoft or Google will in the long run be in a better position to develop such products. It can’t be denied that Microsoft are leaders in Office productivity suites, however these are heavyweight desktop applications that are known to be unrepsonsive even on powerful desktops, never mind porting that to the web, I think what we’ll see from the MS camp is a slow piecemeal online port of existing technologies. Then again who has more experience and resources for web systems than Google? Google don’t mimmick desktop apps, they break free and come up with apps native to the web, Gmail is a fine re-definition of email for the web with its powerful search and message ‘Labels’ as opposed to folders, and it works damn well, mind you it’ll probably still be a while before I switch from Outlook.
For the moment we have lightweight apps for taking notes, updating web pages, schedules and email. Some are nice in concept but not quite ready for the masses to adopt. It’ll probably take another 4 or 5 years to develop on exisiting client/server communication methods and a further 5 years to see widespread support and adoption- think of how long Ajax components had been around before mass support.
Aside from technical issues with a web office, what about social and privacy issues? Would you really like to entrust your company confidentials to the databases of MS or Google? Most companies would like to keep their documents in-house, and knowing Google if you were to store all this info online they would surely scan for key phrases and deliver ads based on your documents while you edit them.
Tags: Web 2.0
