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RSS feeds are becoming more and more popular, and businesses and individuals alike are using them to communicate with customers, vendors, journalists, friends, and family. Some industry watchers are predicting that RSS has the potential to replace email, and marketers are taking note of their popularity and power. In their current form, feeds are not personalized enough to eclipse email as a communication method, but with the right tweaking and features, they could be a powerful new tool for both businesses and casual users.

RSS, which stands for “Really Simple Syndication”, “Rich Site Summary”, or “RDF Site Summary” depending on who you ask, is essentially a self-updating content subscription. They are based on blogging tools that authors can use to post new stories, updates, and information. Avid readers can add a simple application (sometimes on the desktop, sometimes in the browser) which lists new content and keeps them up to date. RSS feeds are very commonly used on blogs, news websites, and podcasts. They are usually denoted by a small orange icon featuring a “sound wave” graphic.

Marketing groups are starting to use RSS technology also as an alternative to mass emails that serve to annoy and inconvenience even the most dedicated of customers. At this point, sources estimate that just 20% of internet users employ RSS feeds on a regular basis, but these numbers are expected to increase as the technology becomes more familiar. While it may not have as wide a reach for personal notes and messages, RSS has definite potential to change the way businesses communicate with customers. As a recent SiteProNews article suggests, “In the same way email eclipsed snail mail for content delivery, RSS will eclipse email as the consumer’s choice for opt-in messaging.”

One of the reasons RSS is so promising is that it actually reaches people who care. Even if you sign up for an email newsletter or HTML-based special offers flyer, the likelihood of it actually reaching your inbox shockingly 60% or less. RSS, on the other hand, does away with spam filters and allows users to check updates at their own convenience, ensuring that 100% of subscribers will get the message.

Another reason why marketers are turning to RSS is due to the rise of internet video. With sites like YouTube and Hulu topping the traffic charts, advertisers are turning to video as a way of grabbing users’ attention. Email, however, is a very complicated way to deliver a video message; even HTML emails are not a sure bet depending on subscribers’ clients and settings. Videos get stripped by email providers, and there’s no guarantee they’ll play within the message consistently, which is how users will expect it to work. RSS, however, was built to easily embed video and audio, just like a blog, and users don’t have inconsistent access to the message.

As RSS gains more users, businesses are seeing a unique opportunity to target their marketing efforts at their best customers. RSS provides a pain-free, consistent way to reach users who actually want to hear from them. It eliminates many of the inconsistencies and headaches of email marketing efforts, while still providing the wide reach that email creates. The potential upsides are enormous, and as the technology improves to allow for private messages and personalized content, RSS could well become the method of choice for online communication.

Both Google and Microsoft have made moves to enter the health care industry recently, and both are hoping that the sector will prove to be fertile hunting grounds. This election season many Americans are taking stock of the way our health care system functions, and depending on the outcome in November, there may be major changes in store. Microsoft and Google are both taking a risk by pushing tools and software applications aimed at patients and professionals, and their daring may be ill-advised.

Microsoft launched a controversial health record storage tool called HealthVault in October, and thus far they have managed to attract some high profile industry partners, including American Heart Association, LifeScan (a glucometer manufacturer), and the American Diabetes Association. Talkibie covered the launch of HealthVault, and initial reactions to the technology were mixed. However, as the U.S. population ages and baby boomers become retirees, experts predict that the average patient will become more involved in tracking and managing their health records. The web is an increasingly convenient and secure option for keeping track of everything from taxes to social calendars to bank accounts, so why not hospital records?

Google had been hush-hush about a health records tool for months, though the technology world was expecting a competitor to Microsoft HealthVault. CEO Eric Schmidt finally announced Google Health in February, and the web-based application will allow patients to upload and link their personal health records to doctors offices, pharmacies, specialists, and other authorized parties. As the official Google blog puts it, “Google Health aims to solve an urgent need that dovetails with our overall mission of organizing patient information and making it accessible and useful. Through our health offering, our users will be empowered to collect, store, and manage their own medical records online.” The new record storage site is being tested at the Cleveland Clinic and Google is inviting both patients and doctors to share any thoughts or suggestions for improvement.

Microsoft also has designs beyond online patient record storage. They recently announced a new application called Patient Safety Screening Tool (PSST), which would be used within hospitals as a means of monitoring patients to prevent infection. PSST specifically targets sepsis, a deadly infection common in hospital in-patients which can affect as many as 750,000 patients annually. As a Microsoft press release explains, ““The Patient Safety Screening Tool for Sepsis can help save lives by monitoring clinical data inputs and dispatching alerts and reminders based on predefined thresholds and pattern matching to facilitate early detection and intervention.”

While all these efforts towards cracking the health care market are laudable, one has to wonder if Microsoft and Google are barking up the wrong tree. The industry is notorious for tight budgets, strict administration, and binding bureaucracy. While some might view these as barriers, these two technology companies clearly see them as opportunities for improvement. If a new software tool or web application can save doctors time, save administrators money, and save patients’ lives, it would certainly have every chance to succeed in the health care sector.

Despite intense negotiations and Steve Ballmer’s best efforts, the Microsoft buyout of Yahoo! is off, for now. With top executives unable to reach a price per share agreement, Microsoft withdrew their $33 per share offer. Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang reportedly asked for $37 per share for his company, which Ballmer was unwilling to meet. Yang maintained that the Microsoft offer undervalued Yahoo!, despite their closing price of $19.18 on January 31st, the day when possible deal became public. In a press release Ballmer explains his decision to give up: “We believe the economics demanded by Yahoo do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal.”

In the wake of the announcement, Yahoo! stock sank, reportedly off 16% by 10 A.M. on Monday. This reaction shows just how much shareholders and traders were depending on a successful negotiation, and Yahoo!’s next moves will determine whether they stay afloat. They’ve begun more than a few new ventures in recent weeks as an attempt to boost stock prices in the face of Microsoft’s offer, but will any of their efforts prove successful without the deal going through?

First, Yahoo! launched a news-rating website called Buzz, which gives readers the ability to vote on their favorite content by “buzzing it up”. The most popular stories and pages will rise to the top of the page, giving readers a chance to see what others in the Yahoo! community are reading. Buzz attempts to mimic the success of popular link-sharing sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, and StumbleUpon while spreading the success of Yahoo!’s news service.

Also, Yahoo! entered into a controversial partnership with Google for a short experiment in ad sharing. Google was allowed to place ads on 3% of Yahoo’s various sites, which prompted a share rise of 7% upon announcement. The strategy lasted just two weeks, but some experts speculated that it could signal a longer-term cooperation between Google and Yahoo!. The controversy comes from anti-trust watchdogs and regulators, who would likely strike down a true partnership between the two, as it would consolidate web advertising in too few hands.

Lastly, Yahoo! plans to unify many of their various services into one network, giving users the opportunity to create profiles and share their activities with friends. The social networking model would tie together their popular email service, Flickr (a photo storage & sharing site), Del.icio.us (social bookmarking site), Upcoming (social calendar site), and many others. They plan to sideline Yahoo! 360°, a social networking site that hasn’t caught on in a major way. Rather than building a social network, Yahoo! plans to build social features and conveniences into each of their services, providing users with a unified, customizable dashboard.

While many had hoped that a deal would be imminent (particularly Yahoo! shareholders), executives at Yahoo! were not ready to give up just yet. These recent announcements could be what it takes to keep them in the game, albeit not on the level with Google. As for Microsoft, they’ll have to wait for another opportunity to jump into the web market.

The wires are buzzing this week as Microsoft is reportedly experimenting with subscription-based versions of their productivity and security software packages. The new pricing plan, code-named “Albany”, is currently in private beta, and no announcement has yet been made as to when a wide release is scheduled. Albany will combine many of the tools that Microsoft users access on a daily basis, and the subscription will ensure that they always have the latest version without going through the headache of installing and updating software.

Albany will include Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 (a combo of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and OneNote), Windows Live OneCare (an anti-virus tool), Live Mail, Messenger, and Photo Gallery. It will also automatically install a shortcut to Office Live Workspace in users toolbars, which give access to on-demand versions of the Office tools. This combination is meant to appeal to users who aren’t satisfied with licensing agreements, which are not only expensive but also force users who want new versions to buy new licenses.

A Microsoft press release explains how the idea for Albany came about: “We asked consumers what they needed and wanted most on their PC, and the overwhelming response was that they primarily want productivity and security software. Consumers also expressed frustration at having to spend time and effort installing different types of software, keeping current on new versions and getting their computers set up.” The subscription plan eliminates this frustration by providing automatically updating software for a regular fee. Albany customers will always get the new software releases as they’re launched without paying more - it’s included as part of their subscription.

Reviews and reaction to Albany, as is customary for all Microsoft products, is mixed. One CNET blogger writes, “Seriously, this is pointless junk. The only real value is to Microsoft who get to see usage patterns and understand how on-demand software is consumed.” A bit harsh, but it is likely a perk of the venture that was not lost on Microsoft executives. A ReadWriteWeb article is considerably more forgiving: “Even though Albany won’t be a true web office offering, it is a likely low-cost alternative to Google Docs that lives on a user’s PC — something that is still more comfortable and familiar to many mainstream users.” Microsoft is clearly testing the SaaS waters before committing to any big move, and it seems this may hurt their chances in the eyes of some while helping hold on to more traditional customers.

While the plan for Albany falls short of a true Software as a Service model, it resembles the pricing and updating philosophies of companies like Salesforce.com and Google, both of whom are edging into Microsoft’s productivity software market. Salesforce.com tends to target businesses with customer relationship management (CRM) tools, while Google has been directly threatening Office with their online document, spreadsheet, and presentation applications. Microsoft’s Office Life is a nod to the SaaS trend, though it has yet to catch on with core customers in the business sector. As Albany moves towards a firm launch date, Microsoft’s competitors will be watching closely to see how users react to the packaged subscription model.

As the popularity of interactive web applications continues to set the standard, the tools developers use to create RIAs (rich internet applications) are increasingly functional and sophisticated. Some focus more on graphics and animation, while some are directed at businesses breaking into the web world with Software as a Service applications. Two of the main competitors in this market are Adobe, a veteran of RIA development, and Microsoft, which has recently expanded its offerings to RIA developers. Smaller companies, such as Curl and Mozilla, have also embraced the interactivity trend with development tools that have garnered praise. These four players each have something different to offer developers, and their tools are likely to inspire others as RIAs hit the mainstream.

Adobe is by far the largest and best-known company to RIA developers. Flash is the bedrock of their new AIR platform, which stands for Adobe Integrated Runtime. AIR strikes a compromise between online applications and desktop functionality, giving developers the tools to build web applications that run in a desktop environment, sans browser. The tool set was tested throughout 2007 and became available in a 1.0 version in late February 2008. It’s compatible with Windows and Macintosh operating systems, with Linux support in beta. Applications built in AIR require users to download a small run-time (similar to Flash sites), and these apps utilize many familiar tools for RIA developers.

Users of AIR can utilize Flex Builder, Dreamweaver, Flash, and even HTML and AJAX. There is no single, limiting protocol for creating AIR applications. One concern, however, is security. Since AIR apps run in a desktop environment, they do interact on some level with the operating system, though Adobe has tried to limit this as much as possible. Despite the risks of a hybrid model, AIR has many of the benefits of web applications with the stability of desktop programs. AIR will enable RIA developers to keep the sleekness and beauty Flex and Flash while still bringing the power of the web cloud to desktop apps. These hybrid programs could bypass the limitations of web browsers, allowing offline functionality while still maintaining the speed and data processing skills of purely web-based applications.

Microsoft has taken aim at Adobe with their recently released Silverlight 2.0, which aims to combine animation and graphic tools with better data processing, making it appeal to enterprise users. The browser plug-in, a direct competitor with Flash, allows web-based applications to be developed with animation, vector graphics, and video/audio playback capabilities. The new 2.0 version, released in March, supports .NET languages and development tools. This means that content can be coded in a myriad of languages, including some dynamic languages like Ruby and Python. Future plans for Silverlight also include offline functionality, putting the Microsoft development kit in more direct competition with Adobe AIR.

Another development option for businesses with an RIA focus is Curl, which has been a player in this arena for many years. Curl is more business-focused, helping developers create applications specifically for enterprise use. The platform is a stand-alone tool that integrates seamlessly with business data systems and applications. It supports Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and has also reached out to developers through open-source projects. While not focused on heavy animation or interactivity, Curl does allow developers to create solid data charts and graphics.

Lastly, Mozilla, the open source company best known for their Firefox browser, has created a tool called Prism which allows RIAs to run in a desktop environment. While not a suite of development tools, Prism essentially lets developers turn any web application into an independent entity, pulling it onto the desktop. This is helpful because it allows users to tweak and run apps outside of a browser window. It is extremely simple, and requires no new technology or special knowledge. Developers can use all their favorite tools, then deliver the finished product as a desktop program through Prism. It is based on the same model as Firefox 3.0, but it is a considerably simpler version to help developers focus on the app itself.

As web-based software becomes the industry standard, more and more developers will turn to RIA-building tools such as AIR, Silverlight, Curl, and Prism. These technologies will also likely expand their reach into the enterprise market, making it easier and more convenient for businesses to create their own SaaS applications and integrate them with existing tools. Business users are more sophisticated than ever, and they will demand the kind of functionality and beauty that RIAs offer.

Hot on the heels of Yahoo!’s better-than-expected earnings report, the search company has revealed new plans that will change their social networking strategy. Instead of continuing to pursue Yahoo! 360° as a social networking spot, Yahoo! will open its platforms to external developers, allowing users to unify their various services and choose from third-party applications to create complete profiles. This will give Yahoo! users just one location for all their functions, including email, calendars, news, photo storage, and instant messaging. With Microsoft’s takeover offer looming, this strategy may help Yahoo! redefine their services for the new generation of internet users.

PC World has reported this development from the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco Thursday, where Ari Balogh, Yahoo’s chief technology officer gave a keynote address. Balogh said, “”It is rewiring Yahoo from the inside out, across all of our properties, to fundamentally open up those Web services and provide a consistent development model, a consistent deployment and consumer experience as well.” If all goes well, the strategy has the potential to unite hundreds of millions of people who use Yahoo!’s email and messaging services in a social setting. It could potentially give Yahoo! the boost they need to compete with social networking giants like MySpace and Facebook, both of which are open to outside developers creating applications for use within their sites.

Yahoo!’s APIs (application programming interfaces) have been available to developers on a limited basis in the past, but this move is much more broad, and will hopefully create a streamlined process like that provided to third-party Facebook developers. With Yahoo!’s recent acquisitions of Flickr (photo sharing site), Del.icio.us (social bookmarking site), and Upcoming (calendar sharing site), the combination of services into a single dashboard could be quite appealing to users. Third-party applications could include anything from games, blogging tools, file sharing, and a variety of other popular social networking tools. As Balogh said in his address, “We are not building another social network. We are building social into everything we do.”

The first piece of Yahoo!’s puzzle that will be opened up to developers is Search Monkey, which will give outsiders a look at their search technology. Users and developers will be able to customize and tweak search results, as well as applying SEO techniques to bump them up in Yahoo!’s rankings. A senior researcher at Forrester told the BBC, “My hat goes off to Yahoo that they have been able to execute this in a very difficult and stressful time for them on a strategy that I think is potentially very interesting.” Indeed, with Microsoft’s deadline for their takeover offer looming, Yahoo! has shown no signs of slowing their progress.

Their earnings report released earlier this week shows a 9 percent increase in revenues and an 11 percent increase in profits over last year’s first quarter. Yahoo! executives no doubt hoped this news would solicit a higher offer from Microsoft, but the software giant has not backed down. Tomorrow will be the deadline for Yahoo! to begin talks, and Microsoft has threatened to go hostile if an agreement is not reached. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has indicated that the offer may be taken directly to Yahoo! shareholders, bypassing the company’s management.

We all love an underdog, and many in the technology community are rooting for Yahoo!. The new social networking strategy will likely win them even more fans, and potentially give them the bargaining chip they’ve been looking for.

In an unexpected twist, yesterday’s earnings report from Apple shows that the Silicon Valley giant is still very much dependent on its Macintosh products for revenue. As the Wall Street Journal is reporting, “Apple said it sold 51% more Macs in the quarter than a year earlier, with that revenue jumping 54% to $3.49 billion from $2.27 billion, about 47% of Apple’s total revenue.” The findings are especially significant when viewed in light of recent economic woes, as most consumer electronics companies are expected to perform poorly during a slump. Apple, however, has somehow managed to make their revenues rise against all expectations.

The other surprising thing about Apple’s earnings report is the fact that its Macintosh products are still its most significant source of profits. According to an Apple press release, “Apple shipped 2,289,000 Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing 51 percent unit growth and 54 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter.” iPod sales, which were also strong, represent just 8 percent revenue growth for the company. Analysts have speculated that the strong Macintosh performance may be due to a saturation of the music player market. Apple COO Tim Cook refuted this claim recently, saying “For last quarter [Q1 2008] in the U.S., 40 percent of iPods sold were sold to people who did not own an iPod. In thinking about this number, this doesn’t feel like a saturated market to us.”

Other industry watchers have given Microsoft the credit for Apple’s big earnings. More and more companies, my employer included, are switching to Macs in the enterprise setting due to problems with Vista. Just six percent of businesses have adopted Vista, and the recent service pack release has been less than well-received. By contrast, Apple’s OS X saw a business share of 4.3 percent in 2007, putting it in very close competition with Vista.

Part of the reason this movement is occurring is due to the nature of software compatibility these days. Software as a Service (SaaS) companies are gaining popularity, and many business users and individuals alike are turning online for their word processing, spreadsheet creation, photo editing, email management, and even database management tools. Major players in the SaaS market, like Salesforce.com, Google, and Adobe are taking customers away from their MS Office Suites and onto the web. In a way, this means that a browser is really the most important piece of your operating system. Vista’s annoying quirks are too big to ignore, so even business users who would usually need Office are looking for alternatives.

However, it’s unfair to Apple’s careful brand to say that Vista’s failure is the only reason for their success. Their entertaining ads and friendly image, while much more directed at consumers than businesses, draw a clear connection between Apple and creativity. Their innovations in user interface, with both the iPod and the iPhone, have set the gold standard which all others aim to emulate. It seems to be paying off nicely, as their 2nd quarter earnings have surprised the entire industry.

A new trend in SaaS applications has emerged in the online storage realm. Everyone from USAToday to CNN Money is recommending that everyday internet users engage in some form of off site document backup. One promising player in the on demand storage market is Mozy, which caters to businesses and individual users alike. Founded in 2005 in Utah’s burgeoning high tech market, they are owned by information storage company EMC. Mozy offers an enormous amount of online storage space for reasonable prices, charging as little as $4.95 a month for home users and different pricing structures for businesses. They even offer a free version with a 2 GB limit.

Mozy’s storage philosophy is composed of three tenets:

• You shouldn’t have to think about backup.

Backup should be set up once, and then work automatically

• Your files should be encrypted.

Your backup files should be encrypted and stored in a secure, remote location that’s only accessible to you — from anywhere.

• Your backups should be smart.

Your backup system should be smart enough to only back up data that’s not already been backed up, only back up parts of a file that have changed, and be able to back up open and locked files.

Mozy runs on a hybrid system, with backup done automatically using an installed software. Their website is quick to ensure users of the safety of their documents, offering layers of encryption and automatic backup for locked/open files and even Outlook folders. MozyPro and Mozy Enterprise, as the business versions are called, are even marketed to the health care industry, assuring HIPPA compliance with record storage by meeting encryption, security, and transfer requirements set by law.

Mozy’s success is partially due to their hands-off approach to backup. People want storage and backup to be automatic, like virus protection software. No one wants to spend hours figuring out which documents or files have changed, which need to be unlocked then relocked for backup, and how to use a complicated software tool. This service takes these tasks out of the hands of the user, and their software automatically locates and backs up files that have changed. Their testimonials from customers all point to the “lazy” factor, with one Jörn from Germany writing, “Mozy is great for lazy guys like me. My important files are updated, and I don’t do anything.” Their website also humorously points out alternatives to online storage, suggesting that the uninterested “Burn a new CD or DVD every Sunday night and store it at your brother-in-law’s office” or “Buy a $200 external hard drive and hope your office doesn’t burn down.”

Industry experts expect to see a growth in the popularity of online and on demand storage solutions. Both business users and home users are seeing the value of off-site storage for disaster recovery, and the prices for services like Mozy are competitive.

On-demand software has taken firm hold in the enterprise market. Businesses are turning to web-based applications for everyday activities, particularly when it comes to customer relationship management (CRM) tools. However, most businesses still rely on traditional software suites for document creation, collaboration, and sharing. While Google Apps and Adobe’s Buzzword are plenty functional for many small businesses, those with more complex needs are looking for enterprise-specific applications. Both SpringCM and Xythos offer unique SAAS document platforms designed with business needs in mind.

SpringCM offers a tool which is aimed at collaborative teams who want to create and share documents in an organized workflow. As their website puts it, “SpringCM makes document handling, workflow and collaboration, and business process management as painless as possible.” They’ve made frequent updates to the platform since its inception, now offering SpringCM 4.2. Some of the features they’ve introduced for business use include:

• Unique email address for each user (documents sent to the address are automatically added to the repository)
• Functionality for saving and reading documents within MS Office applications
• WebDAV folders for drag-and-drop access
• Multiple workflow function
• Diverse delivery options (email, PDF, fax, etc.)
• Advanced search capabilities
• Strong security parameters
• Customizable user interface

SpringCM’s offering has received accolades from industry experts, and it’s business-specific functions give it a leg-up in on-demand document creation. One especially useful feature is the ability to incorporate existing workflows into the application. For example, if an editorial team at a publishing company needed to review one document in specific phases (Editorial Director first, Editorial Assistant second, etc.), SpringCM would support the multiple steps in the project. It also allows any document to be saved as a template for future use. SpringCM offers free trial periods for exploration, and pricing is based on optional features and the number of users.

Another promising SAAS document application is offered by Xythos, which has developed an on-demand version of its popular Enterprise Document Management Suite. Xythos on Demand boasts a number of Web 2.0 features designed around business needs. They also offer potential customers a free trial period, with pricing based on number of users and storage needed. The application allows users to build WIKIs, manage workflow, access and collaborate on documents anywhere, share files securely, and subscribe to updates.

In an eWeek review, the last feature was especially impressive to testers: “All folders and content within Xythos on Demand can be subscribed to through an RSS feed…giving users notifications of changes to document repositories using the same feed-reading tools that they use for get updates from blogs and news sites.” This is a function I haven’t seen in any other web-based document app, and it makes perfect sense in a business setting. While many of us use RSS feeds to stay up-to-date on our friend’s blogs, the latest news, and industry publications, RSS feeds are beginning to make the jump into the enterprise world. Now, instead of walking into the proverbial bullpen to see how everyone is coming along, a team leader using Xythos can simply check his feed for a status update. This functionality has the potential to catch in in many different web-based applications.

Xythos’s offerings are geared towards an enterprise audience, and their website tries to assuage some of the common fears about outsourcing document hosting. They assure their clients, “All of your data in Xythos on Demand - your files, the metadata you put on the files, your user accounts - are only available to your organization. No one outside your organization has access to these.” This is in sharp contrast to Google Docs, where the Terms of Service pose a privacy concern for many companies. For example, Term 11.2 states, “You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.”

Now that on-demand services are becoming accepted in businesses around the world, companies such as SpringCM and Xythos are stepping up to the plate to create tools specifically for enterprise use. Both offer a unique platform users with unique needs, and both are on the cutting edge of the SAAS movement.

With the recent proliferation of Software As A Service companies pushing out new applications, “traditional” software companies are trying to match their pace. Adobe Systems is no exception, and they’ve pleased Photoshop fans the world over with the announcement of Photoshop Express public beta, a free application for editing and storing up to 2 gigabytes of photos. An Adobe press release explains, “As the newest addition to the Photoshop family line, Photoshop Express has taken much of Adobe’s best image editing technology and made it simple and accessible to a new online audience.” In return, the new online audience will provide feedback on Photoshop Express features, which Adobe promises will have increased functionality over time.

Photoshop Express will have only a small fraction of the features that the full version boasts, as it’s meant mostly for small fixes for casual photographers. It includes options such as cropping, auto retouching, hue and saturation filters, red eye removal, white balancing, and sharpness, but it won’t be powerful for professional use. It’s based on Flex technology, and closely resembles other recent Adobe SAAS product Buzzword, which offers users an attractive and flexible online word processor. In the brief time I spent tweaking and distorting a photo in Photoshop Express, the heavy use of Flash was evident, as the application seemed sluggish on my machine.

For a software company, Adobe is making big leaps in the SAAS world. As mentioned above, Adobe acquired Virtual Ubiquity and released Buzzword, which Talkibie featured in a previous article. Buzzword is a sleek, flexible word processor with significantly more features aimed at Adobe’s core base of designers. The user interface, which is very accessible, closely resembling that of Photoshop Express. Both apps are aimed at a wider audience than Adobe products normally encompass, and both attempt to bring web functionality and accessibility to high-end software.

In addition to Buzzword and Photoshop Express, Adobe has also released a version of their video editing product, Premier Express, for web-based use. It is currently in place on partner websites Remix MTV and Photobucket, so users can augment and destroy the latest offerings from their favorite artists. The Premier Express website promises on-demand video editing: “Mix and mash clips right in your browser for instant remixes, anytime.” Adobe is also working on a storage service called Share, which went live in beta just last week. Share gives user the ability to convert 5 documents to PDF, access your documents and collaborate online, post document links to wikis and blogs, and embed a Flash preview of documents on any website. This, coupled with Buzzword, could be a very powerful tool for enterprises and individual users alike. Share is currently free, but will likely include a pricing plan as it’s adopted by businesses.

As a recent article on ReadWriteWeb asks, “So the question that comes to mind is will these tools be meshed together as one single online suite accessible via a single sign on?” According to an Adobe official who spoke with ReadWriteWeb, it’s a highly likely possibility. Tying these online applications together in one suite could make them more attractive and convenient for enterprise use, a market where Adobe has always excelled. The combination of photo and video editing, storage, and documentation could be a powerful mix for creative groups, marketing teams, publishing houses, and a myriad of other business users. Adobe has carefully engineered the interface to reach audiences of all experience levels, making for a very accessible product group. Many experts and business minds will be carefully watching the development of these Adobe SAAS offerings as they expand features and gain new users.