Time To Say Goodbye to Desktop Office Apps?

By NewsFactor Network | March 1, 2007

The notion that cheap or free Web-based word processing or spreadsheet programs could replace traditional software like Microsoft Office is becoming more realistic all the time. Outfits like Google, ThinkFree, and Zoho have new and better services every day. And now startup Transmedia has come out with Glide OS 2.0, a package that aims to replace nearly all the software on your computer.

At the moment, Glide’s ambitions exceed its ability to deliver by a fair margin. It’s still officially only in beta (a state Google’s Gmail has been in for three years) and is clearly a work in progress. But as a demonstration of where Web-based software may be headed, Glide (www.glidedigital.com) is a fascinating experiment.

The suite covers most things consumers do on their computers. There’s a word processor, a photo editor, a drawing program, a presentation program, and a blog-writing tool along with e-mail, calendar, contact list, chat, and file-sharing. And, of course, you can play music and videos, read news feeds from Web sites, and check the weather.

Home Screen Confusion

All of this is done within a Web browser, and the data are stored on Glide’s servers, not your hard drive. Pricing is based on storage: A free basic account offers 300 megabytes of storage, not a lot if you’re going to do much with photos or other media. Paid accounts start at $4.95 a month or $49.95 a year for 2 gigabytes of storage. Once your information is in the Glide system, you can get to it from anywhere. The applications are based on Adobe’s Flash 9 software, meaning they will work on any system that can run Flash. A mobile version formats Glide for the small screens of handheld devices.

I tried Glide on a variety of systems, large and small: Windows XP and Vista PCs and a…

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