Office software will remain in the desktop
Months ago I have started using OpenOffice for my “Office” work: Documents, Letters, Taxes, etc. After a month or so I give up with OpenOffice and started to use IBM Lotus Symphony, which is also based in OpenOffice but with a revamped UI, after 2 months or so I give up again. Then, I start to use some of the Online Office web applications, from Google Docs, Zoho, ThinkFree passing by Buzzword, Sliderocket and Blist, I have tested the most popular ones. Days ago I get back to Microsoft Office. Let´s see why.
A bit of history
In the beginning, there was Wordstar and Supercalc for the old MS-DOS, next come Corel WordPerfect and Quattro Pro, then, Microsoft Office for Windows came and the party is almost over.
Is no secret that one of the most used programs today is for Office purposes, things like typing reports, expenses plans, or sales presentations is just as common as drink coffee in any office now days.
Online Office
First of all I don´t want to wait 1 minute to open and seek a document, next, the lack of features. But all is not that bad. For example Buzzword (recently acquired by Adobe) is by far the best Online Word Processor out there, is simple, quick, nice designed, intuitive UI/UX, and with Flex there is just better that all the AJAX mumbo jumbo present in the other applications (Google Docs, I am talking about you).
Online Office software have a key to success that is (starting now check Office Live from Microsoft) not very common in Desktop Office Software, and that is, Collaboration, yes collaboration.
With Online Office apps maybe we can finally be free from the hassle of never ending attaching versions of documents to our email (is almost as the old chain letters). And improve the way we work with others.
Let´s say the true here: Who use Google Docs or Buzzword for every day documents creations? The answer is: not many. Why? Because is hard to get thing the way you want in the on Online Office applications.
Offline Office
Desktop Office Software have all the features and speed of… well… desktop applications. And even when the good ones are expensive, you always can get OpenOffice or Lotus Symphony for free.
I (and you too, certainly) still prefer use a desktop application for my daily office work, is just way easy to click on a document file, open it and start editing. No web application can beat that, and we are used to it.
Finally
The Desktop Office Software will be here with us for long time, maybe because people are used to it or the lack of features in Online applications. But something is true, Online Applications have the Collaboration thing that can, in the long way, win the race.
Keep flowing.
I think zoho is really useful to use on campus. If I have to do something on a mac computer in a lab, i use it and then access the same info on my pc. No dealing with thumb drives or the like. I’ve been trying to get an invite to zoho mail. You can look at the test page and its pretty impressive.
Google is definently behind the 8-ball. Thier online software doesn’t format things well, its slow and doesn’t have the features of other suits. I couldn’t get microsoft office online to work on my computer at all. It just wouldn’t load with my slower internet connection. I think I’ll check out Buzzword, it sounds interesting. Good article.