The list of companies offering an online word processor just keeps getting longer and longer. And because there are so many options, it makes it difficult to determine which service to use, if any at all. As though there weren’t enough options, Adobe has announced that they are acquiring Virtual Ubiquity which is the company that makes Buzzword.
Buzzword is a fairly new online word processor built upon Adobe’s Flash platform using Adobe Flex. Eventually Adobe will be integrating it into a new service called Adobe Share which sounds like their version of an online office suite. While I’m still not sold on the idea of managing all of my documents online, Buzzword does have some nice features considering it is web-based. Some of those features include:
- Spell Check
- End Notes
- Insert tables and images
- Print options for page size, page orientation, etc.
- View the history of all the revisions made on a document
- Share documents
- Organize files
The Adobe Flash platform is certainly powerful, and Buzzword realizes this. Virtual Ubiquity’s CEO Rick Treitman says, “Flex and Flash were the means to where we want to go. No one else realized how powerful it was as a virtual machine.” Another big feature with Buzzword is that they’re the first online word processor with pagination. News.com explains Pagination as something that “allows people to get an accurate view of how a document will print out as the document is edited.”
Buzzword certainly could be competition for Microsoft, but more likely, they’ll end up as competition for other online word processors like Google Docs and Zoho Writer which could result in these companies putting extra effort into their products to make it the best. While I don’t foresee a major paradigm shift any time soon in the word processing market with people switching entirely from desktop based word processors to web-based options, it could certainly happen in the future. And should this happen, there will sure be all kinds of options to choose from!
Thanks for the tip S!
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Tags: Web Sites, Adobe, Flash, Google Docs, Online Office Suite, Zoho
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This could do to google and zoho what openoffice and star office are doing to MS Office. Moe and More people are realizing that Unless their business revolves exclusively around office application its actually useless to pay big bucks for mirosoft products when you can get away with free offline and online Applications.
I agree, businesses that don’t really rely a lot on Office can definitely get away with free alternatives. I even know of some elementary schools that are using OpenOffice.org instead of paying for Microsoft Office, even though I’m sure Microsoft offers a decent education discount.
The only problem is that the businesses aren’t looking hard enough for the free applications, and many are worried about trying them out because of the lack of support they offer.