In the very near future more and more of the tools you will need to edit, write, collect and publish online, are going to be sitting and running on a remote server, and not on your local computer hard disk.
While many have long realized this, the largest part of Internet users has only seen glimpses of this new reality via the increased use of search engines, web-based social networking tools, image archives and online collaboration tools. But for the most part, the majority of users is still strongly anchored to their desktop based fortress, generally made up of Outlook or equivalent email program, Word and a set of more dedicated apps like Excel, PowerPoint, Photoshop, or a database tool.
Habit, good advertising, incompatibility with other formats and lack of true alternatives have made the use of these tools become more necessary than any open market and smart consumer would ever want. But now, that even Microsoft itself is awakening to the launch of an increasing number of web-based office applications, there can be no more doubt about where the future is going to take us.
Web-based applications are always up-to-date, require no physical purchase, no download, no installation and no setup. They run right away on any computer you may have: PC, Mac, Linux, or others. Web-based applications can be made more secure and reliable than many downloadable software tools available today.
Further web-based software is born with built-in collaboration abilities and with the potential to do many things more that are just not possible on the desktop.
Web-based apps also require much smaller marketing and sales budgets to distribute them globally, thus allowing many more companies to compete in this emerging new industry.
This is why I have taken the time to invite for an interview, Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho, one of the early pioneering companies in this field. Zoho, supported by know-how and talent developed over ten years of enterprise management work, offers a set of web-based tools that are targeted at providing a true effective alternative to your typical Microsoft Office suite. As Dr Vembu said in this interview “…we definitely share your passion for affordable software. I come from India and I know $300, you know, paying $300 for a Microsoft Office suite is not by anybody’s stretch of the imagination what can be called affordable.
When the income level in my country is like $600, asking for $300 for software just does not seem right to us, and particularly, thinking of university students and the like. So we definitely want to create an affordable alternative…”
Here is my 25-minute audio streaming interview with him as well as the full text transcript of this information-rich conversation:
Web Based Applications Are The Next Wave