Buzzword: Adobe’s Latest Challenges Online Office Suites
Adobe has jumped into the online office fray with its acquisition of Virtual Ubiquity’s Buzzword, an online, Flash-based word processor. With the online office market already crowded with Google Docs, Zoho, ThinkFree, Zimbra and a new offering from Microsoft (more on that later) what does Buzzword have that the rest lack?
Judging by some early screenshots, Buzzword features a stunning interface design and there will reportedly be an AIR-based version available that can run independent of the browser, but the lack of export options brings down an otherwise nice looking product.
Creating and editing documents in Buzzword is similar to other online suites, but because it’s Flash-based the app offers some nice typography and more desktop-app-like menus. However, at the moment, your file export options are limited to Word or RTF formatted documents. Adobe says it plans to add support for the standard ODF format, as well as PDF, in the future. So far the company has made no mention of including an HTML export option, something most competitors already offer.
Buzzword is currently an invite-only preview, but the service will remain free once Adobe takes over and the product goes public.
Adobe also plans to expand Buzzword, presumably adding features like spreadsheet and presentation apps at some point, though at the moment the company says that its first step is to integrate Buzzword with its existing products. “The first step is to extend support for PDF output and gradually integrate with future releases of Acrobat Connect, Create Adobe PDF Online, and Adobe Document Center,” the company said in a press release.
With the online office market already brimming with options, Buzzword has its work cut out for it, but one thing is for sure, Microsoft Office seems increasingly superfluous for the average user.
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