Rationale for Office 2.0
Monday, January 16th 2006 | Ismael Ghalimi
I am often asked to explain the benefits of Office 2.0 over traditional approaches. Office 2.0 is all about using Web 2.0 online services instead of desktop applications, and storing data online rather than onto one’s desktop or laptop hard drive. These two little things, when applied in a systematic manner with the help of state-of-the-art services can bring the benefits that follow.
Fewer applications to pay for.
While this might change in the future, 7 out of the 11 online services I use at the time of writing are totally free. 2 have good enough free options, even though I opted to upgrade to their commercial editions: I am using the $24.95-a-year Flickr pro account, which gives me up to 2 GB of monthly upload capacity, and the $150-a-year LinkedIn Business account, which grants me access to InMails and OpenLink. Finally, I have subscribed to the $125-a-month Salesforce.com Enterprise Edition and the $120-a-year DreamTeam for AppExchange featured earlier. Among all these, only Salesforce.com is a must-have application, and at $125 a month, it certainly is not cheap, but it does so much for me that I would gladly pay twice as much if I had to.
Ability to share your data.
When all your data is available online, multiple people can get access to it at the same time, from anywhere. Document sharing and publishing options offered by online word processors such as Zoho Writer featured earlier are so effective that you will soon wonder how you managed to get your work done with a desktop word processor and all your documents locked up into your personal hard drive.
Mobility across computers.
When all your applications and data are served through online services and you do not have anything but a web browser on your personal computer, you can easily move from one computer to an other, which could be your own personal equipment or the one you get while visiting friends, customers or the local computer store. On a daily basis, I switch from my laptop to my home desktop many times, and because everything I do is done online, I experience no disruption at all along the way. I managed to remove the very last local file from my laptop’s hard drive last week, and the feeling of having no strings attached is absolutely liberating.
No need to backup your data yourself.
When all your data is managed by reliable third-parties such as Google or Salesforce.com, automatic backup is taken care of. And if you want to remove the dependency on a single service provider, you can always use a combination of them, as described on this post.
No fear of loss or theft.
When all your data is online, the loss or theft of your personal computer is limited to the physical machine itself, while having your data safely kept online is just priceless.
No more problems with viruses and worms.
Most viruses and worms target personal computers, and those that go after servers are the responsibility of your online service providers, not yours. You could still get infected by using a simple web browser and going to the wrong site, but re-installing an operating system onto which no data lives and no specific application has been installed is a matter of minutes rather than days. Also, because Office 2.0 removes the dependency to specific applications and file formats, nothing should prevent you to move away from Microsoft Windows to Apple Mac OS X, which until now has demonstrated a far greater resistance to viruses and worms.
No painful software upgrade.
When your applications are served by online service providers, someone else is doing software upgrades for you, and if you carefully select your providers, such upgrade can be totally painless, as was related in this post.
Of course, all these benefits disappear if you cannot get access to a decent Internet connection, which is a requirement for Office 2.0, much like a desktop computer was a requirement for Office 1.0. If you need to work offline, Office 2.0 might not be the best option for you, and you should not believe people who advertise online services that can work offline as well. They do not, because they should not, so make up your mind and go with what works best for you, based on your own set of requirements.
Entry filed under: Office 2.0
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[…] Collaboration features are goodPart of the value of storing your data online is that it enables collaboration with other people, as described in this article. For that reason, services that support document sharing and publishing will always get my preference over services that keep data to myself only, as long as they do it in a secure manner. In that respect, support for both public and private bookmarks was one of the primary reasons why I upgraded from del.icio.us to Simpy. […]
[…] The concept for Office 2.0 is getting more and more popular these days. Mercurytide recently published the well-written A life online: living decentralised, a list of Office 2.0 services (many thanks to Assaf for the link), while Rod Boothby is keeping his Web Office Directory constantly updated with new goodies. Not to be undone, I have consolidated all the services I currently use into an updated Office 2.0 Setup. Because a lot of this setup revolves around Salesforce.com, which not everybody can afford, I have also added a list of alternative services, most of which are free. The term ‘Office 2.0′ is also getting some adoption and was recently used in a first podcast by Dennis McDonald, Martin McKeay, Jeremiah Owyang, Daniel Sweet and Robyn Tippins. […]
[…] I believe Office 2.0 will be a pivotal event. Since the turn of the year, Ismael has been cobbling together a bunch of hosted applications. The idea is to create a low cost, shareable, portable computing environment that anyone with access to a browser can use. Sounds enticing. Ismael explains the rationale here. […]
[…] Ismael Ghalimi, one the Enterprise Irregulars, is organising the first Office 2.0 conference in San Fancisco in October. I’ve mentioned Ismael’s IT|Redux blog before - he explains his rationale for the Office 2.0 concept here, and then collects together appropriate tools here. The conference: “brings together Office 2.0 companies, early adopters, investors, industry analysts, and journalists. The goal for the event is to collectively build the foundation for Office 2.0, investigate technical challenges, and showcase practical applications. Most importantly, it will be an opportunity for like-minded people to meet and network with an elite group of visionaries and industry leaders.”I’m trying to organise attending, and there should be quite a European contingent with Dennis Howllet and David Tebbut both intending to make the trip. The Irregulars are planning to meet up on the evening before - it should be quite a landmark event in a number of ways. Technorati Tags : Office+2.0, Web+2.0, Enterprise+Irregulars, IntalioPowered By Qumana [link] […]
[…] An interesting post here about Office 2.0 arguing why Web-based productivity applications are better than the status quo (Microsoft Office presumably). Thought it might be worthwhile for us to match Live Documents against some of the points made in the post: […]
[…] Rationale for Office 2.0 […]
I was wondering if you tried ThinkFree for your online word processor. It is the only online office I would consider using because its features are so much closer to Microsoft Word, and a lot more stable dealing with larger files.
Paul,
Yes, we are using it for complex documents. Very good tool.
[…] The rationale for Office 2.0 should be pretty obvious to you if you’re reading this blog, but it would take years for most end users to really understand the benefits of the concept, and make the leap of faith that is required to move from what they know and works (Office 1.0 productivity suites) to what they’re being sold and might break (Office 2.0). So instead of evangelizing the concept, Steve and his folks will put a working version of it in many pockets, all at once. They’ll start with 10 millions in 2008, and if the iPod’s success is any indication, most users of Office 1.0 productivity suites should have been exposed to the idea before the end of the decade. […]
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It’s amazing how accurate it is that “everything changes and yet everything stays the same”. In the ancient pre-web days of mainframe-terminal architecture, deep-pocketed companies paid massive amounts for programs/software/applications that could be centrally stored (along with data) and accessed if not collaboratively, then at least simultaneously. Then along came the PC and that model mostly gave way, for many reasons, not the least of which was cost. Standalone or multi-user desktop applications became the norm and Microsoft and Apple grew to be the monopolies that they still are today. Then dial-up for the masses gave way to broadband higher-speed connectivity and the concept of a computer has again morphed, with eager young programmer/entrepreneurial types now proclaiming that software-as-a-service is the dawn of a new era in computing, something that only the inside “visionary” technorati can really appreciate.
Well, the box has changed and the programming as well, but the concept is as ancient as digital computing. Will it be less expensive this time around? For medium and large companies, more than likely. For the SOHO and individual, that is definitely an open question. Most programmers cannot presently afford to give away their time, at least not indefinitely; and I am not aware of any venture capitalists, CEOs or employees who are not concerned with salaries and profit. Either advertising subsidies or customer revenue must be there. It’s really no more complex than that. So, SaaS or Office 2.0, well, neither is a new concept, and whether the digital divide will be lessened by online applications will be entirely dependent on cost. If, as seems to be already happening, the SaaS entrepreneur sees those dollar signs mounting in the monthly revenue stream capable of being generated by online storage and updates to premium online applications, then the end consumer could be in an even worse monetary crunch as his/her monthly tribute to the digital gods escalates. There are very few original ideas (and yes that even includes the iPhone), and the promoters of SaaS or online applications will hopefully turn down the hype. On the other hand, if this recycled concept can be made practically available at very reasonable rates, i.e., if it can break the Microsoft/Apple logjam, then despite its lack of theoretical innovation, it may be useful. Here’s hoping.
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