Being an evangelist for "Office 2.0", being a Office 2.0 Worker and also writing a book about the topic, actually it's more of a practical guide to making the move to "Office 2.0" platform I felt it was necessary to respond to a post I just read from Dan100. Actually it's not that post I really want to respond to but rather the one he links to.
For me, the most compelling point is We have to type in addresses to get to applications. Websites run applications. But instead of just clicking naturally, we type in an address, then fill in login information, then click. This is a key point - why would people want to use a clunky browser interface instead of a (relatively) quick and clean desktop app? The only reason might be to be able to access their data from any web-connected computer. Omnidrive may well provide a solution to that as it matures with a virtual 'drive' for desktop use and a website for remote data access. Of course the machine you're using to access your data might lack the needed desktop apps to view and manipulate your data - here web apps have a place.
Or maybe a simple online version of Office will spring forth from Microsoft as part of its 'Live' strategy?
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Dan100: Web apps - no future?First, go check out
Zoho they have what you are looking for.
The post he is responding to is from
HorsePigCow and is about how the future is not in the online environment but rather in your desktops being basically all networked together and connected. Hmmm, strange we have that now, but anyway, I wanted to go through a little scenario that
I've been working with now for awhile. Now before I do I'm not questioning their thoughts or their motives I don't know either one but their blogs are interesting and seeing Dan100 link to HorsePigCow I was surprised (always am when two blogs I link to actually link to each other), this is simply a different view on the same topic.
I also won't discount some of the points, the concept of Office 2.0 does have some
bugs.
Back in April
I blogged about my experiment into the realm of Office 2.0, this is when I uninstalled all of my desktop applications. I've actually been trying to do an update post about this experiment but just have not had a chance yet.
So without too much further ado this is a typical day of an Office 2.0 worker... OK for me.
06:00 - go into my home office and move my mouse around to bring my screen back online (do the same for the work laptop)
06:01 - I randomly choose a browser (Opera, IE, FireFox, etc) and start the browser up
06:02 - Load my
Google Homepage
06:03 - Look to see if I am running on a Windows or Linux system (I swap drives constantly)
06:04 - load my RSS Reader (notice I have a "quick lanuch" module that I will sooner or later release to the masses - it's based on the
Office 2.0 Database)
06:05 - start reading all my news feeds and blogs, if I see an entry that is particularly intersting I either "star" it in my reader or open it and add it to my
Del.icio.us links to review/and or write about later.
06:45 - roughly (I subscribe to a lot) I take a look at my "desktop" for my
mail inbox, my
calendar (which I sync my work one and a few different other ones together) and thus have a decent agenda for the whole day across all my activites.
07:15 - turn around to my work laptop and load Outlook
07:18 - read my mail
07:48 - Start my "
day job" work but I keep my eye on my desktop computer and
meebo which I have loaded that allows me easy communication with the half million or so users for my day job
Other than Skype and my virus scanner/firewall I have one program running on my PC and that's the browser and with 1.5GB of RAM life is sweet, the browser runs full screen mode and I notice little to no difference when working in my various online applications. My work laptop has 1.0 GB of RAM, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, Browser, Virusscanners, VPN, and several other applications running (corporate life I guess) so life is not so sweet.
So just looking at that little bit of information lets take a look at the future (warning: Craig makes his first predicition) in terms of ease of use and efficiency
while connected online the world of the online application wins hands down, but let's go through each point that was mentioned over on HorsePigCow,
- We are really constrained by browsers. Think about it. People saw AJAX and went, "oooooo, ahhhhhh!" but we've been able to drag and drop on our desktops forever.
- Browsers suck up a great deal of virtual memory. They are an OS on an OS, basically now.
- We have to type in addresses to get to applications. Websites run applications. But instead of just clicking naturally, we type in an address, then fill in login information, then click.
- All of our information is stored in the ether. If we want to store it on our own machines, we have to take an extra step. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
- And speaking of information in the ether. Wouldn't it be good to work offline whenever we wanted to and have it update when we are re-connected?
- Have your browser crash recently? Any backup? Restoration of where you were? Heh. I'd think that would be pretty basic. No?
- The webtop gives us a much smaller working space.
- There is this whole having to design for browser compatibility thing that would be done with - just design for OS compatibility.
- I, personally, want to be able to read stuff offline. I want that to be solved.
- I know, I know...your web pages...your blogs, etc. Well, that is the only part that needs to be solved...although RSS solves much of that.
- Just think! No more stupid search! Search is sooo broken. I want find. There has to be something smarter...
The first one, OK we've been able to do a lot of things on our desktop but I still want to say "Ohhh cool!", as for the memory well I'm seeing things bit differently with my testing but hey each person has their own setup and hardware configs so I can't say this is not true but I can say that when I run my "Office 2.0" setup on the work laptop after disconnecting from the corporate mothership and closing down everything I really don't need it runs just as well as on my desktop.
Typing in addresses, yes a total pain and one of the main reasons I created my Quick Launch module.
As for all the info being stored in the ether well when attached to the corporate mothership I am storing everything on the networked drive anyway and I actually have to take the extra step when needing something to actually get it local because sometimes (depending on where I am) the connection to actually work on it remote is too slow. Privately I have networked drives as well, I use
Box.net and
Streamload Mediamax, after two hard drive crashes this year alone I had enough with depending on my own hardware now I depend on someone elses and they of course do lots and lots of backups (more than I did). That was the other thing, I had backups of my backups and hard drives backing up my hard drives -- at one point I had 3 spindles of DVD's (100 each) with just backups of my 3 hard drives. This was insane and a waste of money and time as I could never find what I needed again anyway and that was only when I took the time to look.
Offline, OK I'll give you that, you can't be an
Office 2.0 Worker and go offline. However, I have DSL (best you can get in my part of Germany although digitial internet is on it's way) and a flat rate so with my WiFi I'm connected throughout the house and garden 24/7 anyway and with my work laptop, wife's laptop, my desktop and my Blackberry I'm usually not wanting for a connection. However this is a major problem with the whole setup - my answer to this bug is simple though.
- Read a book
- Watch a movie
- Go for a walk
- Enjoy time with the family
Pretty good alternatives I think. When traveling especially for work you need a break as well, the same items above apply.
Has my browser crashed? Actually no but as I mentioned my hard drives have this year and I know my father is cussing up a storm since his computer just died -- seems his memory chips were not compatiable. What was that about backups? I went out and bought one of those "push the button" and it does an auto backup, but hey how often do you actually "push the button" anyway? Also when the computer crashes (got Windows?) you tend to lose a bit more than just what you are typing right now (I did just hit "Save as Draft" though as I didn't need the irony of my browser crashing right at this moment).
You've lost me on smaller working spaces, removing all the toolbars, status bar and buttons in my browser and hitting full screen mode I loose basically nothing? This of course is something one has to get used to it's a pure personal preference I think. I also have a 1600x1400 resolution and good eyes ;-)
Designing for browser/OS comptability it's the same you either do it for one or the other and in both cases you have the same issues - with the browsers though you have a community driving the process to standardize and with the next release of IE I think things will be a step closer whereas I keep seeing new flavors of Linux popping up and now Windows has something new and Mac - well they are over there somewhere as well moving forward and adding in new things with each release.
Reading offline, OK once again yes a problem and as you pointed out RSS does solve that for the most part if you have an RSS reader installed on your PC. I use an
online reader which allows me to share (via RSS) my starred items these are the ones I've not read yet or that I want to really sit down and read. Thanks to
Feedburner I'm able to do this (granted workaround but it does work). What I do is have that RSS feed sent to Feedburner, then I republish the feed as HTML and show a rather large number of posts. I can then get that HTML page offline.
Didn't quite get your issue with search/find perhaps you'll elaborate?
For me the idea of being dependent on my desktop PC, laptop or any other computer is just not appealing. I like the fact I can swap out my hard drive from Linux to Windows or Windows to Linux, throw in a Knoppix CD or just jump onto some other PC and be able to continue working without delay and if there is no PC or net connection available I have my family, movies, books and the great outdoors.
Again I do respect what both of you are saying I'm just here to offer a different point of view on the whole thing.
That is my prediction. No more browsers. Just connected desktop apps. So...what's next?
My predication is not a bunch of connected desktop apps but rather a bunch of integrated online applictions which can be accessed anytime, anywhere by any platform.
