screen-capture.pngFor many of us that have grown up using MS Office, the thought of using an online office tool from a third party vendor is a bit scary. I have been using Word, Excel and PowerPoint for so many years that the only way I can remember not using them is when I recall that I once used Lotus 123 pre-Office. (Shudder.) Yet progress marches on and I am not one to wax nostalgic on the tools I use; I want the cheapest, most efficient and productive tools on my bag (or on my laptop) so hence this message to you.

One of the skills I blessed with is to see a trend coming and to recognize that major changes are in the wind. The purpose of this stream of information is to make sure we paint that picture clearly for you… Over the last month, I switched cold turkey from Office 2007 on a PC to iWork, and now am switching partially to the new Mac based Office 2008. I am going to run Keynote in iWork (the PPT application) and Word and Excel in Mac 2008. This is because I have played with all of the above and am not most comfortable using the applications in the different platforms because of the functionality. I am not done however. Maybe in three months, I will be using Googles tools to share spreadsheets with people I work with – who knows. What I am seeing is that word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation tools are becoming a commodity to me and I can easily carry basic functionality to any brand and run them quickly.

Through this process, an analogy is forming… Core software applications are going to all commoditize to the point that people can easily switch between brands. We might have a preference, but at the end of the day, a tool is a tool. I can go to any buddies house and figure out how their riding lawn mower works, jump on and mow the lawn. I might like one better than the other, but they will all cut the grass. I am seeing kids come out of college that are using Google’s brand of tools and they want to continue using them in the corporations that are standardized on Office. Conflict ensues of course. Fast forward now… Here is what is going to happen. There will be a list of business tools that will have many brands and prices – spreadsheets, word processors, CRM, accounting, etc. File format standards will be set for all the output so we will not even have those conflicts. At the end of the day, we will not care whose brand we use for these tools. It will just be what ever is handy, and cheap (free). This changes the game for Microsoft of course. It also means that IT shops need to quit demanding that users adhere to the “standards” set for software. Users should be able to use whatever software tool suits them as long as they adhere to file standards so others can read the output. Just to warm you up, check out the Website of the Day and see if you can force yourself to try it out.

Some online office suites for your consideration:

  • Google Docs — The standard for the Web 2.0 college crowd. A force to be reckoned with in the corporate world.
  • ThinkFree Office — An excellent MS Office replacement. ComputerWorld’s pick too.
  • Zoho — Dizzying array of products built for productivity.

Scott

Website of the Day is – http://www.editgrid.com/ This is one of the most advanced online spreadsheets…