Small Company Offers Web-Based Competition for Microsoft Word.

Small Company Offers Web-Based Competition for Microsoft Word.Within group Microsoft Office, the calendar on the wall seems to be 1983, the company launched Microsoft Word. The company is still waiting for customers to buy their software and how to install and run on a PC.

The recognition of the Internet has been slow in the future. Microsoft is finally preparing the web version of its Office suite, even if they are designed as complementary, not substitutes. The company says that the web versions of Word or Excel do not match the functionality and responsiveness that the software installed on your machine has.

May it be wrong.
Of course, the biggest competitor to Microsoft, Google is not even on the protection of the bastions of Microsoft Office and blew a huge hole in the complacency of his opponent. Google Apps, the suite like, contains a multitude of diverse services. I think Google Calendar, far superior to Microsoft Outlook calendar, but the word processor Google Docs lacks many features of Word I have.

The best treatment of text online, however, May is a small company, Zoho, a nimble innovator. Zoho Writer is running close enough to imagine that Word and other word processors online will be able to do what the majority of Word can do, and more.

Zoho Writer supports basic and offers many advanced features, without breaking a sweat - how to edit a document at page breaks are shown. Google Docs can not. Writer works, even when not connected through the open source technology developed by Google, Zoho and word processor used in four months before that Google uses.

Zoho Writer also offers features such as selecting an esoteric footnotes or notes, without note, indicating in the text. Google Docs is that the notes and places them in a book as a position signal. You can not create the need for more complex mathematical equations, but Zoho Writer, it is easy to do.

Writer is available for individual users and for the first 10 users of a company. (It's the same with Zoho 9 of 18 other online services Zoho.com.) Medium free and without advertising, too. "We do not advertise. We do not believe in advertising, "says Raju Vegesna, a Zoho marketing.

Zoho hopes that the word spreads and large companies to sign, pay $ 50 a year, a user 10 access to productivity applications, as the writer, and separate monthly fees for enterprise applications.

Microsoft Office is available in various configurations and prices, and Microsoft has not disclosed its lowest volume of purchases. However, Office 2007 Professional is available at retailers for about $ 400.

Zoho is a division of AdventNet which provides online services for business software and services company with headquarters in Pleasanton, California AdventNet, held behind closed doors, said the software is profitable, but not equal to Zoho , which was established in 2005 AdventNet.

At Microsoft, Chris Capossela, Senior Vice President of Microsoft Business Division, which operates its Office product line, I explained how the company is preparing for "the future of computing - a combination of the best software and Internet services. " The next version of Office - is preparing its launch in 2010 or later, he says - have three incarnations of what Microsoft calls the "rich client" ( "rich" refers to nature) and installed in the PC the user and the mobile version for smartphones. The two exist today. The third, and new, the form will be web-based service.

Mr Capossela sees the web version of Office, as an emergency only for users who are away from home or office, and a rigorous, using a machine that is not theirs. With Microsoft Office on the Web, users can do a little work, between classes, or at the airport, "he said.

Asked if Microsoft was interested in the Internet version as complete as the desktop version, which mocked the idea of a "browser experience" could be the equivalent of a "rich client" at least without Using a chart as a complement to Adobe Flash.

The Adobe web site offers its own line of Flash-equipped with word processing, fashion. But for my taste, Flash video is too much for word processing. Zoho Writer handles and without flash.

Mr. Capossela seems convinced that describes the initiative by Microsoft to have more challenges like Zoho online. "Many of our competitors have to spend an enormous amount of energy that provides a copy, is already in the office suite," he said. "We do not carry this burden".

Zoho, however, does not load at all. He suggested, long before the word, in some areas, such as providing multiple users to edit the same document simultaneously.

Zoho Writer is completely polished - lose double-spaced, when exporting to Word format, is a painful step required to print a copy of a final draft, not the head of the browser. In total, they are minor irritations, balanced with the ability to edit and share documents online without effort, in many respects.

Microsoft estimates that 500 million copies of Office running on the world of a billion Windows machines. These are the easy victories, before the site is ready to compete with the software installed. The next 500 million euros, if you win, it will keep ahead of what can be achieved under moderate rival Web browser.