In a blog post on his own site, Michaels Robertson announced yesterday that a new AJAX word processor called ajaxWrite was available for immediate use, and that this would be the future of software delivery. In fact, it's the first of several—the site design hints at six—AJAX-based applications that will be presented one at a time, every Wednesday for the next few weeks. So what makes ajaxWrite special?
"What's unique about the approach with ajaxWrite is that it's the first ajax application which doesn't feel or look like a web program, but looks like a traditional software program," explained Mr. Robertson in an e-mail to Ars. "ajaxWrite is just the first program we are releasing. We're going to release a new one every Wednesday on ajaxLaunch.com. The goal is to obsolete big bulky desktop software and replace them with snappy ajax programs."
The application is launched through a web browser (cross-OS, but it currently only runs in Firefox 1.5 and better; no other browsers are currently supported!) and opens as an undecorated browser window that looks a lot like a rather old-school standalone word processor application. The look and feel aims to be close to the über-familiar MS Word interface, but it's scaled down to the bare essentials under the theory that most people don't use most of the advanced features anyway. Robertson told us that the upcoming applications (no word on exactly what they might be, so feel free to speculate in our forums) would be as lightweight as ajaxWrite, around 400KB each, and would do most of the work on the local machine but send data back to the central server for some tasks like importing and converting documents.
ajaxWriter in action
This is hardly the first browser-based word processor—alternatives include Google's recent acquisition Writely and AdventNet's Zoho Writer—but Robertson says that none of them fill the need for a lightweight, simple application that just works:
Look at ajaxWrite. It has real menus and dialog boxes. It feels and operates identically to a traditional software program. Now compare that with Writely. There aren't buttons [in ajaxWrite] which act as pretend menus all wrapped in a browser interface which makes it confusing and awkward. ajaxWrite is the first ajax program which looks and operates like a desktop program people are used to. This makes it easy for users to jump from traditional applications to ajax programs because there's no learning curve.
Since you don't need to log in or register anywhere before using ajaxWrite, features like server-side storage, document sharing, and web publishing are absent in the first release. New features will be added, and "spell checking, remote storage and sharing are in the works." The FAQ mentions the possibility of charging for additional features and/or remote storage at some point, and that would be the first attempt at monetizing the application. There are no ads on the sites involved, nor in the program itself, and access and use are free.
So will this software delivery method revolutionize the industry like Michael Robertson thinks it will? Maybe, but chances are that it will take a long time. Home users might be willing to switch to a free and stripped-down version of the traditional software they've been using, although some may be turned off by the relative paucity of features.
It will be harder to convince the huge corporate market to switch to remotely hosted web apps, at least at the onset. There are no support contracts available, and what IT manager in his right mind would suggest going with a free but unsupported product, sending potentially sensitive data over the Web? Despite the inroads free software like Linux, Apache, and Firefox has made into office buildings around America and the world, the old adage that nobody gets fired for going with Microsoft still holds true in many places. However, a more robust version of ajaxWrite that runs on a local server and is accessible to everyone in the office could prove more compelling.
reader comments