Web Marketing Strategy Update

As I mentioned at the end of my previous post, [Google & Sun Microsystems Cross-Promotional Partnership->], there are now several web-based competitors to Microsoft Office applications.

One I’ve been hearing quite lot about recently is ThinkFree Online.

ThinkFree Office is a platform independent suite of Microsoft Office compatible-applications in Java, similar to Sun’s OpenOffice.

The software is designed to look, feel and behave like Microsoft Office, but unlike OpenOffice, it’s not free. It’s much cheaper than Microsoft Office though, and can be hosted on intranets, where the software is launched from the server to the user’s desktop via a web browser.

With ThinkFree Online, ThinkFree have taken this idea a step further and now offer a free web-based version of ThinkFree Office.

According to the site, users are able to access:

• Write, ThinkFree’s word processing application, which uses Microsoft Word’s .doc file format. Write has most of Word’s features, and even retains the user interface that Word users are comfortable with.
• Show, a powerful application for creating presentations that is highly compatible with Microsoft Powerpoint. Powerpoint users will feel right at home with Show’s robust feature set, which includes graphical tools, dozens of animations and transitions, and of course use of the .ppt file format.
• Calc, a spreadsheet editor built for compatibility with Microsoft Excel’s .xls format. With the built-in chart wizard, auto-fill support, and 300 computational functions to choose from, Excel users will be creating powerful spreadsheets in no time.

Users also get 30 Mb or more of secure online file storage. They can create and edit documents right in their Web browser, save their documents online, and open them later using any computer connected to the Internet, or open existing .doc, .ppt, or .xls documents on computers not equipped with Microsoft Office.

ThinkFree Online also offers:

• the ability to save your documents directly to PDF format without any additional software
• an easy way to post Office documents directly to your blog
• convenient tools to organize your online storage account

Whilst the software is platform independent, the beta is only running properly on later Windows systems at the moment, with improved support for Linux and Macintosh systems promised soon.

Here are some other, less rounded offerings:

Writely proclaims itself The Web Word Processor. It enables you to create or upload documents in your browser, which you can then share or post to your blog.

FCKeditor is a free open source HTML based WYSIWYG text editor for the internet.

gOFFICE enables you to create PDF documents in an online editor similar to Word, optionally using one of the free letterhead backgrounds (or upload your own). It’s free for personal use and $1 per month for business use.

Num Sum offers “free bite-sized web spreadsheets for sharing.” Simply enter values into an online spreadsheet which can then be reached via an URL.

Silver Tie are developing a internet application called Gliffy.

The Ajax Office project at Sourceforge seems stalled.

Bindows is a Software Development Kit (SDK) for writing Rich Internet Applications that don’t require any user downloads (no Java, Flash or ActiveX are used) and looks promising.

Other Rich Internet Application technology developers include: Nexaweb.com, Laszlosystems.com, Isomorphic.com and Altio.com

Of course, broadband is really a prerequisite to using any of these online tools. That being the case, whatever the future developments, desktop applications are guaranteed to be around for a good few years yet.

But maybe only in the home.

With the prospect of big savings both immediately and in the long-term, businesses with high speed connections and/or intranets may move far faster, and that could hit Microsoft sooner than expected.

Add to that the growth of non-Windows platforms creating a greater need for cross-platform compatibility, the rapid growth in awareness of free or low-cost MS office substitutes that will surely come from Google’s involvement with Sun, and the incredible pace of internet development (I’ve not been online a decade, yet the internet today is already vastly different from what it was when I first logged on), and you can see why Microsoft might have cause to be concerned.