Web-Based Apps vs. Microsoft

There was a very good article summarizing the Web-Based Apps vs. Microsoft discussion by Cynthia Harvey over at Datamation entitled: Free Web-Based Office Productivity Apps. The sub heads within the article pretty much sum up the discussion to date:

Let’s Share

Wherever You Go, There It Is

Whose Server Do You Trust?

Free!

Show Me The Features

Just A Bit Quirky

Will The Empire Strike Back?

Again, a very good summary. I think it will be great to do a summary of progress in each of these areas say in 6 months and then again in a year to see what changes have occured and progress made.

Slowing Down for the Holiday

Well we’ve reached the bottom of the PR trough with the holiday coming next week. The blogs are slowing down, the only press releases that come out will be the ones they don’t want you to read. Alternatively, who will want to make the first splash of the new year? Who will have the first press release of the year? Zimbra, Zoho, Foldera? I’ll provide what link bait I can for whomever’s first. Just don’t tell Google, otherwise I might have to add a ‘NoFollow’ tag….

 Here are a few other things I’d like to see in 07:

A comprehensive chart of who offers what in terms of applications for business; email, ’word’ documents, spreadsheets, powerpoint, project planning, etc. Any volunteers? You should be able to get a lot of links for something thorough. 

Will storage size stop being used as a product differentiator in 2007? Can someone please do a survey for us and let us know if customers really see this as a key factor?

How many new products will Zoho launch in 07? Raju or Arvind, is there a Zoho Mail coming?

Do those ratios in Nichebot really work? (Keyword campaign in progress.)

Foldera Launch….. Still skeptical Oliver & Dave…. you can send my beta login to catchyaintit [at] yahoo.com  

Who will have a mash up for Goowy first?

Which conference, related to our topics here, is THE one to go to for 2007?

Will the expanded features of products like Zimbra, HyperOffice and others begin to make a serious dent into the Hosted Exchange market? 

What do you think will be interesting with everyone in 2007, basecamp, bluetie, everyone.net, foldera, fusemail, hyperoffice, intermedia.net, load.com, mailsnare, mailstreet, MI8, myoffice.net, norada, runbox, scalix, sherweb, simplicato, solodox, swishmail, thinkfree, usa.net, webmail.us, zimbra, zoho…

What else needs to be covered?

Our visitor stats are growing pretty strong so please help tell your story, provide some thought leadership and expand the dialogue to keep people coming back. We can all benefit from more content, more links and more exposure.

Microsoft Is Your Competition

Support for the position that Microsoft Office will remain strong continues to grow. There are two interesting articles on PC World Canada.

The first a two-parter called Office Doomsday? (part two: Office Doomsday: Backsliding to the desktop) is another interesting real life experience with trying to use online products. Similar to the link in our previous post Microsoft is Worth It (probably better titled, now that I think of it, Office is Worth It).

The other is titled Online Takes on Office and is along the same vein as our prior post Microsoft Will Survive (also probably better titled, Office Will Survive). THis article highlights that Redmond is taking notice of online competitors by noting; “in its August 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Microsoft specifically listed ThinkFree as an Office rival.”

So how are online document companies going to position their products against office? What is the value proposition, key features and tag line that are going to resonate with people and get them to leave MS Office? Put on your marketing hats an throw out some tag lines…..

Web-Based Project

Another great find over at Solution Watch. They posted an overview of Solodox which provides word processing and what is the closest thing I’ve seen so far to replicating Microsoft Project. I’m personally interested in the project tool since, so far, I have been unimpressed with project management tools available thus far. Albeit I’ve used MS Project in the past and was looking for something similar, so I’m going to be biased to Solodox at this point. I’m looking forward to them working through the issues they noted.