Writely now part of Google

Writely is a web based word processor that I've mentioned before, and it has now been bought by Google for an undisclosed amount!

Writely is pretty good (I now use it for writing my blog posts), and so this acquisition has been seen by many as the start of Google's plans for a web based competitor to Microsoft's office suite.

But personally I think this is a bit premature. We may well end up using a fully web based system, with all our data stored remotely etc, but I think there are a lot of hurdles to overcome before we get there, and I think it's a long time away.

As good as Writely is for a web based application, it is still far away from the like of Office, and so will only be a replacement for a small number of users or situations.

I think it is much more likely that Google have bought the product as a replacement for their text editors in products such as GMail and Blogger as some people are suggesting. That's what I'm currently using it for, as the blogger tool isn't very good - the spell checker doesn't even work right!!

I also think what Phil talks about on his blog sounds a good idea: The Online Offline future

In this situation, you're documents are always available, but depending on what you have available you get a different view of them, ie Word if that's installed, or Writely if you only have a browser. This is still some time off yet, but I could see that fitting in with the Google Drive that's been talked about!