Bangalore: The combination of a word processor to create text documents, a `spread sheet' to do calculations; a tool to help make presentations; a calendar and personal planner — these are considered the bare essentials of an `office' for the home or small enterprise. Bundles of these applications called "office suites" need to be separately purchased and loaded on to one's desktop or laptop, and they cost many times more than the basic operating system that fuels the PC.

But with access to the worldwide web — increasingly available as an `always-on' broadband Internet connection — becoming more affordable and with many public places offering Internet hotspots for free, the Net has become a viable alternative to one's own computer desktop to hold office suites, and the many documents one creates. In recent months, the idea that one could use the Web as a `virtual office' has captured the imagination of many developers. Suddenly this year, it seems, PC users with reasonable access to Internet are being offered a compelling proposition: Forget about loading your PC with bulky, paid office software. We'll give you all the tools to do your office work directly from your own corner on the Web — and what's more, we'll throw in free storage space where you can preserve with privacy the files you create.

No flash in the pan

It seemed too good to be true: but the announcement last week that one of the best known `Office suite' brands, — the Canada-based Corel, known for its brand SmartSuite, — has decided to extend its services to the Net and create a free Internet-based word processor called Lightning proves that this is no flash in the cyber pan. The Virtual Web Office has come and as of now at least, it is mostly a free service. The Hindu has downloaded and tried out half a dozen of these Web Office offerings and these are the most compelling for Indian users:

The latest entrant from Corel is a free download from www.wordperfect.com/lightning and is a Web-based version of its word processor, WordPerfect. The application download is 20 megabytes in size and works on all PCs running Windows XP or Vista. It can handle the word document formats of WordPerfect and Microsoft's Word as well as Adobe's PDF and includes a navigator to organise one's files. Once you register, you get 200 MB of storage space.

Google's GMail users will find a button on the opening page, linking to "Google Docs& Spreadsheet." This is a free additional resource which allows GMailers to access an online text editor that can handle the MS Word, OpenOffice, RTF and HTML formats. You can download documents to your desktop or save them in your own page on the Web. The tool also makes it easy to publish blogs and share documents with multiple users. You use the same identity and (password of your GMail account (http://docs.google.com/) Google has also launched a paid service called "Apps," a fuller suite of email and collaboration tools which you can use on the Web for $50 a year with your own domain name and 10 GB of space. The free docs & spreadsheet seems to be a sort of sampler for the priced service. It has not specified any limit on one's storage, but this is still a beta or trial version.

"Thinkfree" is a full Microsoft Office-compatible suite of word processor, spreadsheet and presentation that is interestingly compatible with Windows, Unix, Linux and Mac PCs. You get 1 GB of free storage, but there is a limit of 1 MB per file (www.thinkfree.com) . It claims 2,50,000 users.

"Glide Next" is a browser-based productivity suite from TransMedia that has an edge: it can synchronise just as easily with desktop, laptop or mobile phone... indeed they seem to be targeting the mobile phone user and support 22 types of cellphones and smartphones including Palm and Blackberry. They also have an interesting storage offering: 300 MB for individuals and 1GB for a family of up to four members.

It appears from enthusiastic blogs that one of the most popular of the new generation Web Office offerings is ``Zoho'' — from the Pleasanton, California-based AdventNet. You have a choice of using individual tools like Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho Show — or the entire Zoho Virtual Office. It comes with 1GB storage and is compatible with both MS Office and OpenOffice; it also offers a plug-in for desktop versions of the latest Office 2007.

Zoho was conceived and developed by a small team of engineers at Velachery, Chennai, which is the main development centre for AdventNet. The company was formed in 1996 by Sridhar Vembu, who is its CEO, along with his two brothers and Shailesh Kumar, all engineering graduates from IIT-Madras and other Tamil Nadu colleges. Zoho development in Chennai is being led by another brother Mani Vembu. Dr. Sridhar Vembu, a Ph.D from Princeton, is reckoned among the pioneers who are helping to move more applications to the Web. "When the average income in my country is the equivalent of $600, it did not seem right that people should be asked to pay $300 for a software."

Future direction

That has been the motivation for Zoho — and similar Web Office offerings. It may be too soon to throw away your desktop office suite — but these options point to the future direction of productive computing. Take your pick from the five options above — it could be the first step to moving all your computing desktop to Web.

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