Where we're going wrong with the Web-based Office Suite

I'm not ashamed to admit that Openomy was spawned from the (now overhyped) idea of a Web-based Office Suite. It's simply a spectacular goal, with the power to change personal computing forever. For 95% of individual computer use, a browser and an Office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, presentations) is all one needs. Moving this off the desktop means cheap computing can take over: third-world countries have easier access, piracy disappears, your data becomes available worldwide, etc. Needless to say, we'll get there at some point.

The problem, however, is that we're approaching the problem from an entirely wrong angle and we will kill it. Most of the experts who deal consistently with a web-based Office, such as Richard MacManus or Michael Arrington or -- to some extent -- Peter Rip, all focus on the applications within the Office suite, rather than the foundations and underpinnings of it. This is not their fault -- the applications are the user-facing components which intrigue us the most and display the value of a web-based Office.

The fundamental unit of the Web based Office suite is the file

The foundation of the web-based Office suite will not be the applications; it will be the files. This is exactly as it is currently on the desktop: the core elements to an Office suite are not the applications themselves, but rather it is the files used within the applications.

There are many reasons why the fundamental unit is the file.

First and foremost, it is absolutely imperative that the user owns her data. Remembering this places an implicit emphasis on the retrieval and storage of the files. This is a huge motivator for Maurice and I while we work on Openomy.

Second, the web is not a singular place. It never has been. No one (not even Google!) owns a particular slice of the web. The web is a finely-tuned, extremely loosely coupled collection of sites. It delicately teeters between complete disaster and perfection everyday. It becomes more valuable with every new site. A Web-based Office suite must follow this exact same logic if it is to succeed. That means no one single company (startup or Goliath) will be able to own the Web-based Office. I must be able to write a document with ServiceA and immediately be able to use that document in a meaningful way with ServiceB. If I can not, I will simply proceed with the status quo and wait until ServiceX launches and allows me to do so. It's easy to follow that as more and more Services are launched, this becomes increasingly important.

Third, an application is just an enhanced front-end for a file. As a user, the most valuable piece of an Office suite is the file itself. The application is valuable, of course, but it is simply representing the file back to me in a meaningful way. The file is where I derive most value and, therefore, is where we must begin our Web-based Office quest.

We must focus on the file

In order for the Web-based Office to work, we must focus on the file, rather than the application. This means we must stick to either known standards, or -- as Richard MacManus and Anil Dash suggest -- we must work together to bring new standards to the web.

If Web-based Office applications continue to steer down a lock-in path, we will fail again. But, if we focus on working with the file and providing access to and from each other's services with minimal difficulty, we will all succeed at achieving this goal. We must use the web's advantages and create a loosely-coupled Web-based Office which can grow infinitely with every new and innovative service that launches.

Tags: Office, web+office, Web 2.0, Openomy, file