Denis’ Blog

Google today announced that Google Docs, the Web based word processor of Google, will go off line in the coming weeks

This is a long awaited news. Security and off line usage are two things that prevent Google Apps to go mainstream in business. Security is now managed with Google APIs that enable full integration with corporation Identity Management solution (especially SAML based). In a few weeks, you will be able to use Google word processor in the train, in the plane…well..anywhere…

Add on top of that that Firefox 3, the next release of Firefox due to June, will integrate off line mode, probably compatible with Google Gears, the Google off line engine (based on open source database SQlite), and you have a great view of what is coming. The great war.

Microsoft and Symbian of course. Have you noticed the mindshare that Android and the iPhone took in, well, a few months? Pretty sure it will last. That’s a good news. I am still waiting for my Linux based, 3G, dual card and open sourced mobile phone. And I feel it is not that far away…

Zoho releases today a offline version of its Zoho Writer, a 2.0 competitor of Google Docs. That’s interesting for three reasons:

• First, an off line word processor was the missing killer apps for real Office 2.0 explosion. Let’s see what happens in the coming months, but one can be pretty sure that this is day 0 of real massification of usage.
• now we can say that Microsoft Word has a real Web 2.0 competitor, especially on the SME market
• Zoho Writer uses Google Gears…Before Google does