On 2/22/06, Mathias Bauer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Chad Smith wrote: > > > Agreed. It would be cool to see a full feature suite on the web. > > It would be cool, yes, but would it be something that anybody really > wants or needs?
<snipped experience with no one wanting to pay for online office suite> But, as the originial article points out - people are already doing it. http://www.writely.com/ http://www.irows.com/ The basic business model is, offer a certain amount of functionality for free - basic word processing for example - then charge for higer-level functions (mail merge, collaboration, large amounts of storage, etc.) - that or ad-based. Think about keyword based ads that come straight from whatever you are typing - like Gmail. Five-years ago, things like storage, bandwidth, too few users with high-speed, processing power, and RAM were all cost-prohibited. I now have 5 complete websites that are hosted for free complete with powerful editing tools - all with no ads from my host - just because online storage and bandwidth is so cheap now. The business model of my host is a certain percentage of their hosted sites will voluntarily put up ads whose revenue is split between the host and the content provider. It is getting to the point that people have access to so many computers that it is easier and more secure to have content securely hosted online, than try to keep up with which computer has the most up-to-date version of the file. (and making sure each of those computers isn't lost, hacked, stolen, or broken.) I don't think it will be too long, say less than 10 years, before the majority of our data and our applications are online as opposed to on our personal computers. -- - Chad Smith http://www.gimpshop.net/ http://www.whatisopenoffice.org/ Because everyone loves free software!
