I just upgraded from an Apple PowerBook G4 to an Apple MacBook Pro laptop, which means that I got to experience how Office 2.0 is making it easier to switch from one computer to an other. Start-up included, it must have taken me less than 5 minutes to complete the migration. I installed Firefox, imported my bookmarks from a file I keep on Salesforce.com, added a del.icio.us bookmarklet, and… voila!

Truth be told, the whole process should have taken less than a minute, for installing Firefox was a bad idea. Indeed, no universal binaries are available for Firefox yet, therefore the browser is extremely slow on the new Intel-powered macs. As a result, I reverted to Safari, which comes pre-installed on every mac. This reminded me how fast a browser Safari is, and got me to reconsider my decision to use Firefox at the first place. Of all the Office 2.0 applications I use, only one does not work with Safari — the DreamTeam project management application for Salesforce.com. Recently, I found myself using Basecamp more than any other project management application, and I might drop DreamTeam from my Office 2.0 setup, which means that Safari could become my primary web browser again.

In any case, 5 minutes versus 2 do not make much a difference, and adopting the Office 2.0 model made it possible to switch from one computer to an other in a very painless manner. In the coming days, I will try to identify which applications are missing. I do not know how long I will make it without having to install Microsoft Office, but Gmail’s ability to view Office document as HTML pages has proven to be sufficient so far. Also, because I developed the intalio.com website using Macromedia Dreamweaver, I will have to re-install this application sooner or later, or migrate the website to a set of web services. I am already considering using Dabble DB for the back-end database, but I still need to figure out a way to process RSS feeds into HTML without having to install any software. I’ll make sure to keep you posted on my progress.