The Jason Salas Experience

Michael Gartenberg warns readers to not read too much into Microsoft's Windows Live/Office Live announcment, writing, "Let's...make one thing clear, these services aren't about replacing Windows or Office nor is this a retreat from the traditional Office applications. If you're looking to replace your Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook with this set of offerings, you're looking in the wrong place. Likewise, this is not about a retreat from Windows as the core environment for most folks...What this is about is a recognizing that there's an attempt by others to co-opt the traditional Microsoft space with new offerings."

I'm interpreting the announcement to mean that I'll be able to use native my Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access files in equivalent programs run over the Web by some massive AJAX operation, ActiveX control, Flash interface or applet-like feature; or a service like Writely that emulates the functionality of a word processor within a browser and can then export saved web pages as .DOCs. I'll be happy with either, and I don't plan on giving my desktop Office apps the axe. The VoIM features and gadgets are cool, too.

I'd gladly to either pay for such an online service (not buying/installing the desktop version) or using it only if I've got native Office apps running on my PC, validating my membership. A "web-based version of Office" has to be simple: let me work Office files in a browser.

That's it, and that's all it should be.