Almost everyone is touting online office productivity suites as the next logical step which is why all big players starting from Google, Yahoo, to IBM and now even Microsoft are digging deeper into the trenches.
Well, Microsoft sounds like they are feeling the threats from all corners. But will web office productivity suites really replace our existing tools offline? Will people drop OpenOffice, MS Word, Powerpoint and Excel and ride with the bandwagon? IMHO, don’t think so.
The reasons is just common sense — the reliability on fast and efficient connectivity will always pause a huge hindrance. Just look at any of these scenarios:
- Students using an online word processing tool submits their theses to the teacher just before cut-off date but suddenly, they lost internet connection. Ma’am, the Intarwebs ate my homework!
- Our how about a speaker using an online presentation tool delivering his talk. Suddenly, the connection becomes laggy and he has to wait 5 minutes for each slide to transition to the next. Now that could take the whole day.
- A work sheet being updated by several people simultaneously from different locations, the final computations being dependent on the timely input of data from each party. But then, one person gets cut off.
Anyways, you know what I mean. There are thousands upon thousands of other possible scenarios we can think of. All these time, a good old USB drive is all I can think of.
Yes, I do see the use of web office productivity tools like Yahoo’s Zimbra or Google Docs but they are far from mainstream use. This isn’t just about practical storage issues or uptime. It’s also about access and redundancy. I think these online tools are here to compliment or supplement the existing line-up and not really replace them.
It’s more than reliability and redundancy, privacy and security of data once it gets online would be a primary concern in the near future if not today.
Plus, there’s still that threat called spam!
“Web Office” will not replace offline office suites, not yet. Maybe three decades from now it will, or gain more popularity. It is still too early for these “Web Office” suites, and most if not all, are still continually being developed.
USB is still the way (and I don’t have a USB :p I use my mobile phone), and it’s not “old” yet :p In fact, applications are being developed to run on USBs only – giving us more reasons to stick with USBs.
But sadly, there are companies who are starting to disable USB drives for the sole reason of “security”. Companies today, yes here in the Philippines, are becoming more “Western” – they do not trust their employees.
I won’t be surprise at all if we start to hear reports of freedom, human rights, privacy, etc. between employees and companies in our country.
A couple of weeks ago, we decided not to install any office productivity suite on a new workstation. We’re kind of doing some tests to see if we can survive without MS Office or OpenOffice.org. So far, 2 weeks after, the workstation is doing great with Google Docs. Collaboration is maximized and the document being accessible somewhere else is a plus.
I don’t think that these free services have commitments for 99.9% uptime. If it’s a school requirement to use one of these online tools, it’s best that the school used the paid version to ensure some sort of SLA. Or better yet, the school itself should host the software (many professors use Yahoo! Groups too).
openoffice!!! hehe
The trick is to pressure Microsoft to lower the price of Office.
You’re partially right, but what if you turn things around and say the offline suites still have value because they can complement online office suites.
With today’s possibilities of synchronization, live backup, the arguments of not moving your office environment online are growing very very small in numbers and thin in terms of substance. Re-reading your post, I’d argue that you mean internet connectivity and broadband services should improve, not online office suites.
My 2 cents, I’m of course a little biased since I consult for one of the leading virtual office suites :)
Agree, they should not act as replacements but only supplements/complements.
I’d probably use them on emergencies. I’ve never tried those things yet, and I’m not bothering to try them on my snail dialup.
;D
Yeah Google Docs aka Writely is very fine for me and you can retrieve it anywhere who has an internet connection love it but it’s kinda slow