Is Microsoft Office's day out?

Not only reborn for old desktop applications with a lively, interactive web version, technologies like AJAX also gave life to an ambition that was once considered paranoid: Replace Microsoft Office.

The advent of a series of serialized web services, most notably Google Maps, has made AJAX technology famous in the IT community. Now, dozens of companies are using this technique to build Web versions of all kinds of desktop applications, from word processing software to project management programs.

But don't rush to think of these applications as just an online copy of Microsoft Office, because many of these applications are deeply focused on publishing and sharing information over the Net.

Original AJAX technology was invented by Microsoft in the 90s in the JavaScript language and many other Web standards. But until recently, when the term AJAX officially appeared in February, the majority of new developers and businesses immediately grabbed the tremendous opportunity it brought.

The fact that Google uses AJAX has shown how Web applications can compete with existing desktop applications, from the form to the performance and comfort it gives users. Many developers also believe that, AJAX applications will invade almost all computers that exist in the world.

In fact, interactive Web sites built from Macromedia's Flash and Flex tools have been around for a few years now. Of course, Flash and Flex will continue to exist for complex, sophisticated tasks, but with simple tasks, AJAX is much more suitable.

Not only that, AJAX also paves the way for the expansion of various types of advertising or subscription services to be used as the main source of life. It is different from the previous traditional desktop software model, when users have to hook up from the beginning to buy the product and install it on the computer.

Microsoft, the dominant ruler of the desktop software market, is running at full speed - though a little late - in the realm of the Web-based application service. Opening up for this campaign is Live.com, an online abortion service from MSN. Many of the services in Live.com, such as Hotmail (later renamed Windows Live Mail), have been fundamentally molted by AJAX technology.

AJAX Office?

The rapid development of AJAX and Microsoft's passionate attitude towards this technology, allowing people to think about the possibility of Microsoft Office being replaced.

Google has decided to "dispatch" some of its elite employees to the open source OpenOffice project, a move that makes the search giant guess that the search giant will provide a future Web product suite. not far.

For its part, Microsoft has not announced any plans to develop a complete Web version of Office. Last month, the company said it would launch a new service called Office Live for small businesses that want to manage customer accounts. However, this service is only complementary and cannot replace Office.

With the exception of Google, no small company seems to dream about overthrowing Microsoft Office. But if you ask if Microsoft dares to put a pillow on his or her best office suite, the answer will be "no, no and no"!

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