Writely, the word processor that runs in a Web browser, built by a startup called Upstartle and acquired by Google Inc. in March. Writely is the web based version of the Microsoft Word. It is speedy and online based.
The Big Question is if Writely takeover Microsoft Corp’s word processor, which ships more than 90 percent of word processors used by U.S. consumers and businesses? Writely is in a beta test and works well, but it needs some more advance features which I am sure will come in time.
It takes less than a minute to register at www.writely.com and get a blank document open on screen. As someone would use Word and OpenOffice Writer, a free desktop-based word processor.
Writely can store documents without assigning any particular format. Users who want to download the document to their hard drives can save as HTML, rich text, Word, OpenOffice or Portable Document Format files.
Writely also offers a tagging system like they have on gmail to keep files organized, It also has capability to do collaboration, same file can be used by different writers. Documents can be shared by sending an e-mail invitation to any number of people. All can work on the same page simultaneously; Writely saves often and keeps track of revisions, highlighting changes and additions from different editors in bright colors.
Writely also includes two ways to make what I’m writing visible to the general publicvia blogging and publishing. Every document one would create in Writely gets assigned a URL - after all, I am typing into a Web page.
With Google’s backing, Writely has an edge on its competitors, which include AdventNet Inc.’s Zoho Writer and ThinkFree Corp.’s ThinkFree Write. But as several substantial open-source alternatives have shown, it’s tough to take market share from Microsoft Word. Even with the search leader’s name attached, there’s little danger Writely will crush Microsoft or its pricey boxed programs any time soon.
Google and Microsoft plan to monetize their Online Office applications via contextual advertising but Zoho is likely to maintain an ad-free policy. Instead, Zoho plans to make money from organizations who buy site licenses for deploying Zoho products inside their corporate intranets.
Most people/reporters/writers never ever consider putting their confidential Word documents or Spreadsheets on external servers (no matter how secure they are) and this could hurt the growth or usage of online office applications in the corporate world. So Zoho has a good chance of winning here since corporates can deploy and host Zoho Office suite inside their protected environments - the data will remain safe since it would reside on the company’s own servers.
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