Look Out MS Office!

There's a new breed of office productivety applications out there that not only don't require software, they're free!

Web-based office applications are gaining in popularity today much like what web-based email services (Hotmail, Yahoo,etc.) did in the 90s. With portability, easy access, and ease of use to their credit, these new tools may offer just the solution that patrons need.

As Frank Blair (IT) points out, here are some advantages to web-based office applications:

This has the potential of resolving several word processing issues for us that we experience in supporting patrons

1) No media upon which to save a document and doesn't want to buy a floppy disk

2) media where document was saved is corrupt (could have been saved on the web)

3) floppy drive or other device can't read media that has document

4) no more lost or forgotten floppies left in hard drive

5) Compatible with both Word and Open Office

6) Allows a person to work on a document even when they don't have their media present - anyplace where there is an open Internet connection

Web-based Office applications worth taking a look at:

Writely - Online word processing application that functions with both OpenOffice & MS Word formats.
GOffice - offers online apps for word processing (in PDF or HTML ouput) and desktop publishing. Online apps for presentations & spreadsheets are available as beta release. Free.

Take a look for yourself and let us know what you think...