Tim Anderson

I am writing this using Buzzword, an online word processor developed by Virtual Ubiquity and recently acquired by Adobe.

Buzzword’s makers make the nonsensical claim that it is the first real word processor for the web, ignoring alternatives like Zoho, Google Docs and ThinkFree. It is not even the most feature-rich. ThinkFree, which runs as a Java applet, easily betters Buzzword in features. Still, Buzzword is not bad. It has classy toolbars, loads quickly and is pleasant to use. That said, the real interest of Buzzword is not in its features, but in the strategy it represents.

First, it is a Flash application, which is why it caught Adobe’s interest. This means you will be able to use it both online, as a browser-hosted applet, and, in due course, offline, as an AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) application.

The Buzzword blog says, “Our expectation is that Buzzword writers will increasingly do most of their writing in our AIR version on their primary computer, and move to our browser version only when necessary.” Another post adds, “You get virtual document ubiquity: your documents are available online from any computer, and they can also be available to you offline.” Seamless online and offline use is a killer feature.

Second, Buzzword has the potential to link nicely with another new Adobe initiative, called Share, which is a web storage service. Using Share, you can give contacts permission to access specified documents. You can also embed code into a web site that previews the document, provided it is in a supported format.

I am jumping ahead a little here, but I assume that Adobe will make it easy to save from Buzzword to Share. I can also imagine a nice little AIR application that would synchronise your Share files with an offline store. Share is in beta and currently free, but presumably there will be paid-for variants aimed at firms, offering more than the 1GB of storage now on offer.

This means that Adobe is now in the hosted application business and competing with Google Docs and others for a slice of the emerging market for online office applications. Adobe is big in design, but you would not expect it to upset giants like Microsoft and Google, although it does have two things going for it.

First, it has the plumbing in place for a seamless online and offline solution using the Flash runtime. Google has its Gears technology, but to date has done little with it. Neither Gmail nor Google Docs has any offline capability beyond manual upload and download, raising questions about when we will see Gears put to good use. Second, Microsoft’s Office legacy is at once its biggest asset and greatest liability. Microsoft will do nothing that threatens its most lucrative business, leaving the way open to nimble competitors with cross-platform web-based offerings.

Now, excuse me a moment while I copy this text into Office so I can count the words.