You Choose: Cheap Office or Web-Office?
Would some of the folks clamoring for Microsoft to release a completely Web-based version of its Office suite be just as happy if Microsoft released a stripped-down Office that was really cheap, or maybe even free and advertising-supported?
That’s the intro of a recent article by Mary Jo Foley. Seems to be a pretty logical and straight forward question don’t you think? So…what do you think? Does web-based provide the solution to you or are you interested in a web-based solution because it will more than likely be cheaper than purchasing the full software?
I’m online almost continuously. Just about the only time I’m not is when I’m sleeping or traveling somewhere in the car. The idea of having my software available online makes somewhat sense to me, but I’m not quite ready to make the proverbial leap into relying on online apps completely for everyday use.
Is there a problem with running software from my machine directly? What’s the benefit of the application itself being hosted “in the cloud”? Now I will say the ability for all of my documents to be available from any Internet connected machine would be attractive. Even then though, with my portable hard drive and a USB thumb-drive, I’m getting close to always available.
That brings us to the next purpose, web-apps should be cheaper right? That may be the case, but what’s the price point? As Foley suggests, if you could get a really cheap version of machine based software, would you choose it over the web-app version?
I think it’s a no-brainer for me. At this point in my life and the world, I’d much rather rely on a piece of business critical software like Office hosted on my machine than somewhere flying around the Internet.
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POSTED IN: Corporate News, Office, Office Live, Online Services, Software, Speculation
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