MattSnodBlog

Another new version of Microsoft Office is coming out on June 15. While I don't think they could have really improved the art of typing a letter beyond version Office XP (or even Corel WordPerfect 5.2), at this point, it's just fine-tuning the user interface and tools. And perhaps undoing mistakes from previous versions.

One happy addition I wanted to mention has to do with PowerPoint -- the plastic spork in the utensil drawer of presentation software. Microsoft has finally decided to allow actual embedding of video files into a presentation. No more links to video files that get broken once you move the file or try to e-mail it to someone else. Apple's presentation software, Keynote, has done that since version 1. Apple knew then that people don't care that presentations are larger than 100 MB anymore. People have USB nail clippers that hold more than that.

Another welcome -- and inevitable -- feature is their offering of a free, lesser-featured, online version of Office. This is a direct answer to upstarts like Google Docs and Adobe Buzzword. Looking 10 years into the future, I think it's a near certainty that document management will be done via cloud computing of some sort.

The other late-to-the-table addition to the application line is the ability to create PDF files of your documents. As the New York Times's David Pogue put it, "Welcome to 2005 Microsoft!"

The struggle over the past 10 years for Microsoft has been the adoption rates of their new versions. More than 50% of Microsoft Office customers today are using a version that's at least 7 years old. People just seem to be happy with what works and aren't willing to shell out another $120 for a few new buttons. However, Microsoft predicts high adoption rates with Office 2010.

At first, I was very skeptical about cloud computing, specifically word processing and spreadsheets. I couldn't wrap my head around relinquishing access and direct control over my documents to something other than a hard drive that was no more than three feet away. I'm sure you, too, have been burned by server crashes that have wreaked havoc on your Word docs on a shared server. Still, Microsoft Word always kept a local copy that was never more than ten minutes old. To boot, the hacking of Twitter's sensitive Google Docs further justified my apprehension.

However, I'm a realist ... a pragmatist ... and a technologist. But what happens when these attributes conflict, as is the case with trusting cloud computing? First, the realist in me understands that cloud computing / online document management is where things are headed. Why fight it? 'Nuff said. The pragmatist in me knows that cloud computing introduces more points of failure (Internet connection, remote servers, hackers). The technologist in me loves the idea of real-time access to all of my documents, well beyond the benefits of a USB jump drive. Let's face it ... where do you go nowadays that you don't have at least some level of Internet connectivity. (Answer: The one place you'll need that document the most.)

I already do some level of cloud computing with Apple's MobileMe file storage service, but adding the capability to edit and collaborate on documents takes it to a whole new level. That said, I've decided to jump in and start porting my documents over to the cloud where I can both access and edit them from (nearly) everywhere. The big-player options:

• Google Docs. I've used Google Docs before when collaborating on a document or spreadsheet in my work with the ADM to some success. As with all collaboration editing, it gets a little hairy when a lot of people try to edit something. It's like five people trying to make a batch of cookies all at the same time.
• Google Wave. This is really just an expanded implementation of Google Docs, but the principles are the same. Plus, I'm really looking forward to using the collaborative functionality of Wave and its gadgets for work use. However, for personal use, I think I'll stick with the simpler tools.
• Acrobat BuzzWord. It seems like Adobe looked at the mistakes of others before releasing this slick update. They really hit it out of the park with this iteration. BuzzWord maintains the core functionality that's critical to word processing (text, paragraphs, images, etc.) yet made it so elegant and user-friendly. To look at BuzzWord and Google Docs side-by-side, I think one would naturally gravitate towards BuzzWord, if only for its design. With this (and Google Docs), you can create PDFs of your work, which is recommended for delivering a finished, uneditable version of your work. Note: with BuzzWord, you can only export five PDFs for free.
• AjaxWrite. This one can read and write MS Word files and is completely free. In fact, it feels a lot like early versions of MS Word. The two main drawbacks are that it only works in Firefox, and it's a bit slow. I often have to wait for it to load a blank document. Seriously?

For me, the only feasible options are Google Docs (formerly Writely) and Adobe BuzzWord, the former for being more ubiquitous, the latter for being ... well ... cooler. It's a shame that whichever route we go with online word processing, they all feel the need to pay homage to the Microsoft Word mother ship. Hell, I'd love to use Apple's Pages, but who else will be able to open a .pages file? Everyone knows what a Word DOC is.

Update on Friday, November 20, 2009 at 4:47PM by Matthew Snodgrass

Other benefit to plain old desktop-based word processing ... you won't ever get a message like this:

But then again, know that your computer will crash a lot more than Adobe's or Google's.