The biggest expense in buying a new computer is not always the computer. After all, you can buy a new Dell desktop, and a good one at that, for US$300 and get a monitor in the bargain.
The software to make a PC do anything useful can cost you as much as the computer. To accomplish even the most basic functions on the computer, like writing, you could pay US$400 for the standard edition of Microsoft's Office suite that includes Word for word processing, Excel for spreadsheets, Outlook for e-mail and PowerPoint for boring everyone with slideshow presentations.
You can find software that is cheaper. Yet a stripped-down student and teacher edition of Word still costs US$150 and even Microsoft Works 8.0, a really basic version of Word and Excel, is US$50.
There is another way to do almost everything these programs can do -- some would say you can actually do more -- and you can do it free. A number of smart programmers have developed word processing, spreadsheet, calendar and other software that you operate while in a Web browser.
No one is saying they are a direct substitute for Word or Excel, but they do have a distinct advantage. The programs can be used by several people at different computers to collaborate on a document.
"It's solving an actual real problem," said Sam Schillace, a founder of Upstartle, which makes the Writely software for word processing. Google bought the company for that software this year.
Google is the biggest and best-financed company putting such software online. It is gradually opening to the public the Spreadsheets program it announced last week, and it plans to release a version of a word processing program soon. A number of smaller software companies are doing similar things.
Where is Microsoft, the software giant, in all this? Interesting question. It is expected that Microsoft will offer a similar product via its Net-centric Office Live initiative, which converts the desktop to the Web top. It may be a tough choice for the company, because it faces the dilemma of cannibalizing its own products or letting someone else take a bite out of them.
Microsoft, which carved a near monopoly in word processing and spreadsheet software, has up to now been able to protect its high prices. But these monopoly prices, as many economists argue, will eventually attract competitive alternatives. In fact, this could become a textbook example: Innovators are attracted by the profit pool and undermine the monopoly with something different.
You have always had the ability to edit a document in a browser, including Microsoft's Internet Explorer, by opening the file in HTML format. You can still do that in a pinch, but no one recommends it because that method is pretty bare-bones. You cannot automatically check the spelling or easily change to unusual fonts, for example.
The new programs take word processing a step further. If you have already been using a free e-mail program like Yahoo Mail or Google Gmail, you have some experience with substituting tools on the Web for programs residing on the hard drive of your computer. Of course, to take advantage of them, you have to get over two hurdles. One, you can use them only if you are connected to the Internet. And you must be comfortable with the idea that your addresses, your correspondence and your documents don't reside on your hard drive in your computer in your home. They are stored at sites controlled by a giant company.
The new online applications add functions to that basic browser ability by using a set of software tools known among developers as Ajax. These tools enable a host of so-called Web 2.0, or Web services, applications like Google maps posted in Web sites or photos displayed on Flickr.com.
Google Spreadsheets is a good example (you can find the program at Google Labs, labs.google.com, but to use it you have to sign up for a Google account first; no one said free meant easy). An alternative is Jotspot (www.jot.com), though its products are aimed more at business users.
Google Spreadsheets has many of the features you use in Excel, like the ability to sort, change typefaces or color and insert a variety of set formulas. The developers plan to add other features like auto fill.
You can save the document to your hard drive or to the Google servers. Once it is there, you can access the spreadsheet from any computer, which means you no longer have to load it onto a disk or flash drive to carry it home or to another office, or send it there by e-mail.
Because the document is stored on the Google servers, you can give permission for other people with Google accounts to open and work on it. A team can work on it together to make changes. The file can also be opened in Excel.
Jonathan Rochelle, product manager for Spreadsheets, said people were using it to create lists and share them with groups, like a soccer team or fellow students. Wedding planning becomes a little easier as couples use the multiple pages of the spreadsheet to track guests, accommodations and menu selection. He used it himself to help his father with a budget while the two were in different cities.
Google's word processing software will work the same way. It has not been released yet, but an early version of the browser tool had every necessary function of Word except auto correct, where misspellings are changed on the fly. That feature is coming, Schillace said. "We haven't been able to do it smoothly yet."
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