The Web as a Workplace

OM MALIK revisits the old theme of using the web as your workplace. He points out the prospect has become more viable because a new generation of browsers from Microsoft, Mozilla, and Apple will appear with features specifically tuned for Web applications. This means you will be able to run basic ECDL applications through the internet rather than on your hard drive. As we're experiencing in Tipperary Institute, this means you can write with Writely, e-mail with Yahoo! Mail, set appointments with Trumba, or jointly edit planning notes via Google Calendar. If you want synchronicity, you can choose Skype or Google Talk or a variety of chat applications. Jason Calacanis thinks all these things point to the emergence of a Google Operating System [3.5 MB 96 kbps MP3 file from The Gillmore Gang.].

Quite frankly, I think it's remarkable to be able to conduct business without bloating your hard drive with applications. Moreover, all the things you need to use in this new world of office applications are free.

I've readjusted some of my work h abits. I finish something at work, hit "save", go home and use my sitting room WiFi node to resume work. It doesn't matter how old my home tech is. In fact, when working over the internet, my four-year old desktop is not a limitation--yet. By next year, I will need at least Windows XP to leverage the power of the new browser and that means upgrading equipment.

In the meantime, I feel like I've found the best of both worlds. I trust my data to online storage and know it will be handled better than I have ever backed up and store my important stuff. And with a few tweaks, I can see my data offline in my browser. Remind me again--why do I need Office 2007 when I rarely use more than 10% of Office 2003?

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Om Malik -- "Microsoft's big nigthmare: free online apps"

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