Ajax Office

New ajax web applications are coming out faster than you take a shit. If the AjaxOffice project gets some code written, we’ll have a full blown office suite running within the browser the next time you visit the bathroom. However, writing code doesn’t seem to be on the agenda just yet, so don’t get too excited. Nevertheless, you can avoid waiting for the open source movement to copy crappy ideas from M$, and start using existing applications out there: word processor, spreadsheet, calendar, presentation.

The power of open source is in its distributed, lack-of-office, development approach. The software should be the same. Instead of reinventing the wheel with AjaxOffice, why not create a common platform for existing (and new) applications to use, that promotes interoperability and integration. The following common functionality is required:

  • a standard interface to access the storage facility (WebDAV)
  • standard file formats (OpenDocument, XML)
  • user identification

Maybe there are others, but I can’t think of any cause its Monday morning. Note: Gmail can already be used as a WebDAV-compliant server. So, perhaps instead of actually writing code, AjaxOffice should create an open source specification that ajax applications could follow. That way, we could have an ajax office before I finish this sentence. Done.

Posted by Artemi Krymski on September 5th, 2005 |

Comments

  • Jacques Mony on December 20th, 2005 at 1:42 am

    Hi there!

    AjaxOffice is slowly taking off… don’t expect a full blown Ajax Office suite in the following month, but we are taking the decisions that will allow us to avoid going back once we start the code. But don’t panic, 2006 will see a lot of Ajax Office tools get born :-)

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