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Who needs a computer?
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Coming from a geek like me, the question of 'who needs a computer?' might be a bit disingenuous, but hear me out. I may not be ready to give up my silicon on a regular basis, but it just might be possible now to run a company without dedicated computers - as long you have access to cyber cafes.
Google has been working on making it possible to ditch MS Office in favor of online applications. They bought Writely last year, and it's a pretty decent word processor. I'm not a big fan of spreadsheets, but other than not working with Safari, the Google Spreadsheet seems to do the job that most people will need it to do. Rounding out the suite will be presentation software - though there isn't a release date yet. Google has bought both Zenter and Tonic Systems so I would expect a bit of time will be needed to integrate the two. And, of course, a productivity suite wouldn't be complete without email and calendar functionality, which Google also offers.
Another option comes from Zoho. They came to my attention as a result of having an iPhone app for their services. In addition to having word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation apps, they also have database, CRM, group collaboration, web conferencing, mail and more. Most of their offerings are free, with some upgraded functionality being fee based. I've just started playing with the site and had one small bug show up when exporting a document, but it looks very promising. I'll dig more deeply and let you know what I think in follow-up posts. They've also just started to add the ability to go offline as well. Definitely something to keep an eye on.
I would be remiss in discussing online office tools if I didn't mention 37 Signals. They don't have an online MS Office replacement, but they do have BaseCamp, a great project management tool and Highrise for CRM, and a few other apps. Definitely worth checking into if you need a bit more robust toolset for a remote or geographically dispersed workgroup.
Last but seemingly not least is Jooce. Why run apps remotely when you can run a whole OS? Interesting concept, though the thought of running an entirely Flash based OS is a bit worrisome. Once they are out of Beta I'll definitely be checking it out. I like the idea of sitting down at any computer and logging in to my own workspace. I thought this would happen via Apple's never/not yet implemented "Home on iPod" feature, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
Google has been working on making it possible to ditch MS Office in favor of online applications. They bought Writely last year, and it's a pretty decent word processor. I'm not a big fan of spreadsheets, but other than not working with Safari, the Google Spreadsheet seems to do the job that most people will need it to do. Rounding out the suite will be presentation software - though there isn't a release date yet. Google has bought both Zenter and Tonic Systems so I would expect a bit of time will be needed to integrate the two. And, of course, a productivity suite wouldn't be complete without email and calendar functionality, which Google also offers.
Another option comes from Zoho. They came to my attention as a result of having an iPhone app for their services. In addition to having word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation apps, they also have database, CRM, group collaboration, web conferencing, mail and more. Most of their offerings are free, with some upgraded functionality being fee based. I've just started playing with the site and had one small bug show up when exporting a document, but it looks very promising. I'll dig more deeply and let you know what I think in follow-up posts. They've also just started to add the ability to go offline as well. Definitely something to keep an eye on.
I would be remiss in discussing online office tools if I didn't mention 37 Signals. They don't have an online MS Office replacement, but they do have BaseCamp, a great project management tool and Highrise for CRM, and a few other apps. Definitely worth checking into if you need a bit more robust toolset for a remote or geographically dispersed workgroup.
Last but seemingly not least is Jooce. Why run apps remotely when you can run a whole OS? Interesting concept, though the thought of running an entirely Flash based OS is a bit worrisome. Once they are out of Beta I'll definitely be checking it out. I like the idea of sitting down at any computer and logging in to my own workspace. I thought this would happen via Apple's never/not yet implemented "Home on iPod" feature, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
