Bob Browning's blog

Web 2.0 and AJAX are the way of the future for sure, Microsoft is about to lose its word processing market as new web-based word processing applications such as Writely take over.

Or not.

I was too late to sign up for writely, but there is a new application at http://www.ajaxwrite.com/ which you can use for free. Sadly no cigar – it is full of bugs. But an interesting demonstration of what is possible.I think it exposes some limitations. I would be interested to know if people who have tried other products such as Writely see the same sort of thing.

1. To edit a file you have to upload it. As most broadband has a 256k upload speed this could take a while for large documents.
2. Can a server-based application ever have anough control over the printer to get things formatted just right?
3. How can the sever-based application save the file to the right path on my computer?
4. I like to edit pictures in my image editor and just copy and paste direct into my word document – will that ever be possible?

These are just a few things that occured to me, I am sure there are more. My feeling is that this is never really going to work 100% unless and until Micosoft decides to get into this market and adapt IE for the requirements of its web-based applications. Thereby opening up yet more security holes no doubt. And why would they do that anyway and open themselves up to real competition?I remain a sceptic.