Could this be the Microsoft Word killer?
A couple of weeks ago, Adobe announced that they have acquired a product called Buzzword, developed by a small 11-person startup called Virtual Ubiquity. Buzzword is a web word processor built on the Adobe Flash platform.
I got a chance to play with using the free demo on the Buzzword site. I have to say, for a product which is fairly new, it is quite impressive. It has some of the basic document processor functionalities already running. Some of the neat features include collaboration. Multiple users are able to collaborate on a single document. Changes are seen live by other users collaborating. Another neat feature is that you can save your document in the standard Buzzword format, or DOC, RTF and XML formats. 
There are a number of players entering this space like Google Docs, Zoho etc. But, from my point of view, this news from Adobe is big for many reasons. Most people recognize Adobe for the suite of elegant and useful product which they develop such as Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, PDF, Audition, GoLive etc. Adobe is a brand that has made a name for itself and a reputation for delivering great products. This alone is sure to give them a bit of an advantage. Secondly, this product is built on the flash platform. Hence, all you need is a flash player which at this moment most users have installed. Moreover, the flash player is available for the variations of Operating Systems out there. Flash also adds a touch of richness to apps that are built for the web which is not a “must have”, but I think is always a pleasing sight for users.
Moving along, some may or may not remember Adobe Apollo; now officially released as Adobe AIR. Adobe AIR is a runtime that is Operating System independent which allows applications built for the web to be able to run offline. Now that Adobe owns Buzzword, it is more than likely that this application will be ported to the AIR platform. So what would this mean? It will mean:
- A word processor alternative to MS Word
- Easy entegration with other Adobe products like PDF
- An application that can run both online and offline
- An application that allows for seamless collaboration
- If adobe offers this product for free, or even a lite version of it for free, this could put a serious dent into Microsoft’s dominance
- Since it is built with flash, the interface is quite sleek and pleasing to the eye; fonts are very rich
Almost everyone will agree that MS Word is just way too overpriced. Especially for students, this could be a great alternative. True, It is one thing to have a great product, but acceptance by the masses is another issue. I suggest you tryout the current demo for yourself and see the possibilities of this product. Remember, competition is good for us consumers.
February 1st, 2008 at 5:33 pm
[…] Apple and Google work even closer and tighter, in the race to fight big Microsoft. Adobe enters MS Office Suite territory - releases competing products for MS Office. (Remember they have Buzzword, and they developed the AIR runtime) Apple OS and maybe Linux begin to gain more ground. Seriously Vista is quite disappointing in some of the things they have changed. New startups also entering all the different spaces. Perhaps someone to release a new OS to compete, maybe an OS designed for the new web world. This might sound far fetched, but it’s something I’d like to see. Speaking of far fetched, I release my eBay Killer web service, Google buys me out and I use my money funding projects I would like to see. […]