Office 12 is near to the beta stage and everything of us are
waiting to test the first bits of what will be for sure a cool product. But,
what will happen after Office 12?
A clear roadmap
for Microsoft is to make as more as possible its applications to be
"connected", and all the new releases of its major products (also on the
Business Solutions family) now are going on this direction (and Sharepoint seems
to be every day more the point in common, the core of the chain).
But there's also a new road that could be explored in the future, a road that
someone (Google) is trying to observ, but also a road where Microsoft could be
the absolute leader if a decision to go on this direction will be officially
taken in the future: why not having a web based version of Microsoft
Office?
I think this could be undoubtely a killer application for the MS's
competitors... can you imagine a web based version of MS Office, where after a
normal login you can use your favourite applications (such as Word, Excel,
Powerpoint etc.) on a web-based version totally similar to what is the standard
"desktop" version you have on your office? Imagine if you're on travel, on a pc
without office installed but only with an internet connection available, or
(maybe) with a mobile device such as a Pocket PC or a Smartphone. This is
undoubtely an interesting road and I think that someone inside MS has start
thinking on this.
We'll see what happens in the future but actual web tecnologies are ready for
applications like this so... Microsoft, think about this! 