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A beta version of Internet Explorer 8 was released for download last week, and it seems to make major concessions to the development community that are unprecedented. Microsoft’s latest browser, though still working out kinks, has reportedly passed the Acid2 test, a major standards compliance test which most browser releases strive to render correctly. Other features are also specifically geared towards developers, and this version of IE introduces several new tools that are likely to please. As the IEBlog says, “While supporting the features tested in Acid2 is important for many reasons, it is just one of several milestones for the interoperability, standards compliance, and backwards compatibility that we’re committed to for this release.” These goals are a welcome sign for web developers who struggle to optimize their pages for multiple browsers.

One of the most anticipated new features being tested in this beta release is called “WebSlices”, which is a means by which users can get updates from other sites directly through the browser. This means that users can “subscribe” to portions of outside web pages which update frequently, similar to an RSS feed. This will allow IE 8 users to receive information about their EBay auctions, Facebook friends’ activities, etc.

“Activities” is another Microsoft IE8 feature that has been highly anticipated. It allows users to highlight text on a page and use a proprietary button to find information about that text on other web pages. For example, one could read an article about the Nintendo Wii, highlight the product name, and find retailers who have it in stock. Users could also visit the website of a local restaurant, use Activities to find their location on LiveMaps, and email the information to a friend through Hotmail.

On the developer side of the table, though, IE8 promises better support for AJAX web pages and the ability to “run” both IE8 and IE7 on the same machine. Developers who develop websites and applications for large audiences are constantly struggling to make them work in a myriad of browsers, and Microsoft’s IE updates were an annoyance. Some even turned to less-than-stable setups to allow them access to different releases of IE on the same machine. IE8 features a handy “Emulate IE7″ button in the browser which will display a project as it will appear to IE7 users.

Never easily satisfied, the developer community has a lot to say about the “Emulate IE7″ feature. While some appreciate the option, they have strong opinions about how the feature was executed. One of the most common complains is that it forces you to end your browsing session and restart, possibly losing your footing in your project. One user comment on IEBlog regarding the “Emulate IE7″ function, says it nicely: “With all respect, Microsoft seems to be still putting bandaids on bandaids.” Another commenter jokes, “An ‘Emulate Firefox 3.0′ would be cooler.” Microsoft is undoubtedly listening to this harsh criticism, and developers are being cruel to be kind. IE8 is a beta release aimed mostly at developers, and many of these kinks will be taken into account for the 1.0 version.

Though I’m no developer, I downloaded IE8 and explored the new features. I found it incredibly slow to respond and load content in the feeds, though I did appreciate being able to import bookmarks and favorites from other browsers and drag-and-drop them within the toolbar. It has much of the same look at IE7, so there won’t be a steep learning curve for current users. It did crash on me when I tried to access WebSlices for the first time, and it seems to attempt a “restore session” feature, though it crashed again when I tried to take advantage of it. Some webpages displayed badly, with photos overlapping type, etc. Another user testing out the new browser says, “Unfortunately, I experienced plenty of browser crashes and hanging in my use of the IE8 beta, as installed on Windows XP with Service Pack 2 with Google and Yahoo Toolbars installed.” So it wasn’t just me, a poor Vista user.

As blogger Sarah Perez, who was at the MIX08 conference, put it, “this launch shows that Microsoft is not taking Firefox’s creep into browser market share lightly.” Many of IE8’s new bag of tricks are aimed at mimicking the Firefox features that users and developers love. Now let’s hope that this beta launch is just the tip of the iceberg that Microsoft has planned for IE8.

We are all familiar with the multitude of social networking applications that are popular today. Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, LinkedIn…the list goes on and on. In a time when the online world is so easily accessible to the mainstream, it’s no wonder that these types of social networks have grown in popularity. However, while the aforementioned sites are predominantly aimed at teenagers and college students, a new phenomenon is taking place. As a recent eWeek article points out, social networking is becoming more and more compelling for businesses. This begs the question: will corporate social networks be the next big thing?

Professional social networking websites are becoming more and more common. A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article about a social network for licensed physicians. This site, Sermo.com, serves as a way for physicians to share information, keep each other up to date with daily happenings, and even to help one another make the correct diagnosis of a patient. The article describes how a network of doctors were able to correctly diagnose a 21-year-old patient without ever having physically met. Other such professional websites, such as LinkedIn and SelectMinds, provide professionals with a means of staying in contact with others in their field as well as with their colleagues and friends, which bears a striking resemblance to the MO of the websites aimed at the younger demographic.

But what if a small or medium size company wants to have a bit more control over its company’s social network? As the eWeek article points out, there really aren’t specific vendors for this kind of venture: “The big names in social networking don’t really provide tools for enterprises (there’s no Facebook Business Edition, for example).” However, as the article goes on to discuss, this is not as big a problem as some IT professionals may think. The article offers up three potential systems that will work with a company’s enterprise portals and Web 2.0 applications:

• Microsoft SharePoint Server - an enterprise portal system originally intended as a way of offering data flow control. Integration with the Microsoft suite makes building a social network with SharePoint easy and practical. The downside to this system is limited functionality of many popular social network features, like blogging. It could easily be integrated with an open source blogging tool though.
• Plone - open-source web platform which, according to eWeek, has been used “for everything from enterprise portal systems to project management to Web 2.0 deployments. Every feature needed to run a social network site is available within Plone.” The main drawback here is that the platform is based on the Python language, which is less commonly known and therefore would require a certain skill set among a company’s hired IT professionals.
• WordPress - a highly popular open source blogging platform, with recent add-ons that make it a great fit for low-demand usage. If it can be made more suitable for enterprise use, this platform will be a major competitor in the world of professional social networking.

The Human Capital Institute asserts that corporate social networking is the new frontier in making up to date information readily available to the global community, and also serves as a way to bring professionals together. However, as the popularity of these networks grows, there are several legitimate concerns, the most pressing of which is the need to protect intellectual property. While this has always been a priority of competitive businesses, the advent of these new social networks will add a new level of difficulty in protecting one’s own work and ideas. Heightened security features, which need to operate internally and externally within any enterprise, will no doubt have to be implemented as these social networks gain a foothold in the business world.

Still, even with the added risks, corporate social networking seems to be the latest application to be introduced in the trendy work place. Professionals have finally learned what teenagers and college students have known all along, that social networks are a great way of staying in touch and sharing information with friends, colleagues, and contacts from all walks of life. And while I don’t expect that professionals will be fully assimilating to that culture (although, the thought of reading a corporate budget proposal inundated with terms such as “lol! j/k” does bring a smile to my face), it is clear that social networking has entered the workplace in a big way.

Adobe is no stranger to RIA developers, and their recent release is another move in the right direction. Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) has sparked discussions among developers and at Microsoft, which has been courting Adobe devotees with Silverlight, a tool to compete with Flash technology. AIR was tested throughout 2007 under the codename Apollo, and the 1.0 version was announced in late February along with a new release of Flex. So how will Microsoft’s forays into RIA technology stack up with AIR?

AIR is a cross-operating system runtime which can integrate with existing HTML/AJAX, Flex, or Flash apps that can be deployed not only to the web, but also to a desktop environment. AIR applications are meant to be versatile, reaching users who rely on desktop technology and those who have tasted the proverbial web-based “Kool-Aid”. As Adobe’s website points out, “You can use your existing web development resources to create engaging, branded applications that run on all major desktop operating systems.” Indeed, while AIR runs on Windows and Mac, Adobe is planning to work on Linux support for those users, with a projected availability in the second half of 2008. Best of all, like Flex, AIR is free.

Reviews are positive thus far, and it seems as though AIR will give Adobe a boost against rival Silverlight. As Forrester Research analyst Jeffrey Hammond told eWeek, “They’ve done a lot of thinking about security in particular. That’s critical when you start to break down the barriers between the browser and the desktop…I think AIR and Flex 3.0 get the edge over Silverlight 1.0 when it comes to depth of programming model and developer capability.” Other users are just as excited. One blogger writes, “Some of my favorite words to hear these days from startups are ‘we’re working on/have an AIR app.’”

AIR is a step towards integrating desktop applications and rich internet applications. This will benefit users in several ways: not only will AIR allow RIA developers to add some beauty and cross-platform meat to their products, but it will also bring some of the power of the web cloud to desktops. It bypasses the limitations of web browsers, allowing offline functionality while still maintaining the speed and data processing skills of purely web-based applications. A good example of this can be found in eBay Desktop, a glorified widget of sorts that allows users to monitor auctions in real time (without refreshing), list their items in an offline environment, and upload directly to eBay. Adobe has also made other AIR applications available for test spins on their website.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about both Silverlight and AIR is the attempt both products making to reach out to developers and designers alike. While Microsoft products typically appeal more to developers and Adobe tends to attract the designer pool, both AIR and Silverlight are trying to marry the two communities. As RedMonk analyst Michael Coté pointed out to eWeek, “There’s this idea of a designer/developer out there that we’ve been chasing forever: a person who can not only write clean code but make the result look good and be usable.” Microsoft, Adobe, and others who produce tools for RIA companies are trying to reach this mythical persona.

Perhaps the combined designer/developer persona does exists, but I suspect that releases like AIR and Silverlight are more likely to create this community than to find it lurking somewhere. With the integration of technologies like Flex, Flash, and AIR on the Adobe end and Silverlight, Visual Studio, and Expression on the Microsoft side, developers are becoming designers and designers are becoming developers. In order to compete with the thousands of applications out there, companies are having to use all the tools in the bag, and bag keeps getting bigger and bigger. The winner of this competition between Adobe and Microsoft is not really the developers or designers, but the end user, who is treated to a functional, usable, and beautiful product.

Many small businesses share a common problem: they need to hide just how small they are from their big customers. One of the easiest ways to conceal your small operation is to use a professional phone service, but between hardware installation and monthly fees, a good phone system can cost thousands of dollars. Internet-based phone systems are coming to the rescue of small and medium-sized businesses, giving them a low-cost alternative to traditional systems.

One service comes from Redwood City, CA based RingCentral, which was started with venture capital investments. The features they offer include dial by name, toll-free numbers for phone and fax, voice mail, online call logs, cell phone routing, hold music/marketing messages, and dial by number for different departments. This allows a business with only two or three employees to seem like a larger operation; even if you don’t have a receptionist, clients will be greeted in a professional manner. They have plans starting as low as $9.99 a month, a price almost any business owner could afford to pay. The difference between RingCentral and a traditional phone system is that all the services are delivered through an internet connection, not through expensive hardware that must be maintained. This also means that you can track call times, contacts, and phone activity through a desktop widget.

Another popular internet phone service is 8×8 Inc., based in Santa Clara, CA, which has a product called Packet8 Virtual Office. Their service is priced similarly to that of RingCentral, and they also offer unlimited, outbound calling plans using special phones which can route calls through an internet connection. Virtual Office, like competitors, is scalable for the size of the business, with different pricing options for different office needs. This can also be applied to businesses with more than one location As a customer testimonial says, “We have several regional offices and could not justify the expense of separate phone systems for each site. Virtual Office allows us to have a single solution for all of our sites and makes it easier for our customers to reach us.”

M5 Networks links their service directly to the Software As A Service market. They have marketed their product as “Voice As A Serivce,” even using Salesforce.com’s “on demand” language in their website messaging. This is a valid comparison, and a smart one, since SAAS companies are seeing huge growth. The old traditional phone hardware is a good comparison to boxed software; both are expensive for smaller businesses and both require constant attention from IT teams for maintenance and upgrades. When it comes to phone service, businesses do not want to have to think about it. Internet-based phone services not only help the little guys seem more professional, but they also help the big guys free up their IT workers for more important projects.

As 8×8’s vice president for marketing and sales Huw Rees told the Wall Street Journal, “I think the world is moving away from buying boxes of anything.” Indeed, small businesses are leading the way in this software-free (and eventually hardware-free) world, and it’s only natural for phone service providers to follow the lead of innovators like Salesforce. Professional phone service is now in the realm of possibility for small business owners, and they are leveling the playing field one call at a time.

The team at Google is optimistic about the company’s latest release. They have recently launched Google Sites, a free, user-friendly web site building application aimed at professional teams and businesses, and the service has been incorporated into Google Apps. Using the technology from their 2006 acquisition of the wiki platform JotSpot, Google Sites boasts the following:

• Anyone can use this application (”as simple as editing a document”)
• It will create an environment in which all forms of media can be made readily available to your team (”one-stop sharing”)
• Peer editing of your ongoing projects (”to keep it fresh and up-to-date”)

In addition, there is even an introductory video available which will allow users to tour the application’s features. This CNET article quotes Matt Glotzbach, product management director for Google Enterprises, as saying Google Sites fills “a key hole in the Google Apps Suite. It is the nucleus for other pieces to fit into for online collaboration.” It sure seems as though this new application would be well received, having even been dubbed a “Microsoft SharePoint killer” because of its relative low cost and collaboration features.

However, many feel that these early views of the product might be all hype. Take for example that last comparison, that some believe Google Sites to be a major rival to Microsoft’s SharePoint. Yes, it is true that Google Sites is less expensive and more “user friendly,” as Google has aimed the service at a larger target audience than simply IT professionals. However, the list of competitive features ends there. Many industry experts do not think that Google Sites is ready to compete with industry leaders like IBM and Microsoft. In a recent interview with eWeek, Forrester Research analyst Erica Driver points out that, “Google Apps is still limited compared to IBM Lotus Quickr and Microsoft SharePoint platforms.” Driver also points out other industry professionals’ criticisms of Google’s entire suite, Google Apps, claiming that it lacks “secondary functionality.” According to Driver, these would include search features, information rights management, business process management and informal learning. She goes on to say that competitive products include “an abundance of functionality,” which includes basic content services, collaboration and communication, social computing, portal services, and productivity tools.

Early user reviews of the application have not been promising, either. As one blogger writes,”After 16 months at Google developer’s hands, the outcome is substandard. This is such a pity.” Michael Dressler, partner at The Last Mile Group and one of the original JotSpot developers, was discouraged by the lack of an API (application program interface). JotSpot developers feel disappointed because without an API it’s impossible to create new, more sophisticated applications with this product. To some, this means that JotSpot technology has regressed since it was originally acquired by Google.

There is also quite a bit of negative feedback regarding security and ownership of information over Google Sites. According to the legal agreement users make when they use this application, any information you post can be used by Google for the purposes of promoting their site. Furthermore, Google can (at any time, for reasons they see fit) block access to or destroy your data files. For many enterprise users, this is clearly a cause for concern.

Still, not all reviews are bad. Writer Dan Farber believes that Google Sites and the entire Google Apps Suite has the potential to give competitors a run for their money: “Google Sites is a key piece of functionality for Google Apps. It gives the suite a way to integrate all kinds of components in support of accomplishing a particular task. Adding social capabilities and a database to the suite will turn up the heat on Microsoft to show what it has waiting in the wings to go beyond the prodigious Microsoft Office.” So, even though Google’s suite is a web app tool and Office isn’t, some believe there is a potential for Google’s platform to out-perform Microsoft in terms of usability. And, of course, Google Sites is still in the early stages of release; the company has historically been very responsive to user feedback and complaints, and has planned upgrades accordingly.

Taking into consideration the feedback from industry professionals, it appears that Google Sites is going to meet with some resistance. There is much criticism and little praise to be found for the tool. Though this does not necessarily mean that the application is doomed, it does somewhat imply that there are many upgrades and improvements that Google might consider looking into in order to counter some of the arguments being made against the web suite. However, if the current atmosphere is any indication, it does not appear as though Google Sites will present any stiff competition for Microsoft and IBM. It will be interesting to see if a second release of the application will provide the functionality that Sites is missing.

As Yahoo! Research Chief Prabhakar Raghavan recently told Businessweek, “In a sense, there are only five computers on Earth.” These computers, vast data centers which have come to be called “clouds”, belong to Google, Yahoo!, IBM, Amazon, and Microsoft. Nearly all of our online activities, from sifting through CNN.com’s news stories to searching for risotto recipes to updating our family’s blog, are facilitated by a vast network of computers owned by one of these companies. These clouds are able to process huge amounts of data at amazing speeds, and many industry experts point to them as the wave of the future. The five big clouds are now opening up to smaller businesses, allowing them to compete in the world of data-intensive computing.

Clouds are essentially networks made up of a myriad of smaller machines, inexpensive servers, which can store and move huge amounts of data. These next-generation supercomputers are what allow Google to achieve their goal, “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Most of these cloud clusters are not on a company’s central campus, but in various locations around the world. And when one machine dies or outlives its usefulness, it is replaced and the service goes on uninterrupted. Businessweek likens the trend toward cloud computing to a shift in how American’s receive electricity: “At the most basic level, it’s the computing equivalent of the evolution in electricity a century ago when farms and businesses shut down their own generators and bought power instead from efficient industrial utilities.”

Now, smaller businesses will have the option of shutting down their small “generators”, expensive, clunky, and inefficient servers which cannot compare to power of clouds like Google’s or Amazon’s. As Talkibie reported in January, Amazon’s Web Services Division is reaching out to businesses who would essentially “rent” a piece of the cloud. Applications, websites, data, and even documents could be hosted on Amazon’s cloud, allowing smaller companies to launch products without the risk or investment of their own data centers.

Yahoo! has also taken an active role in expanding cloud computing beyond the borders of Silicon Valley. They’ve pioneered an open source project called Hadoop, which mimics some of the functions of Google’s groundbreaking software MapReduce. MapReduce essentially breaks down every computing task into thousands of smaller tasks which can be completed by individual machines within the cloud, then reassembles the information gathered into an answer. Yahoo! is working to make this software available on other computing clusters through Hadoop. Ironically, Google is now using Hadoop for some its community projects (MapReduce is too secret). Yahoo!, like Google, is making some of its computing power available to universities for scientific research and teaching.

IBM has also made gestures to open its cloud to business customers. In addition to hosting web applications for small and medium-sized businesses, they have collaborated with Google to build a prototype cloud for use by large universities. Fitted-out with Hadoop and IBM’s business applications, the joint Google/IBM university cloud will help computer scientists further develop the cloud computing of the next generation. Microsoft also sees the application of clouds to scientific study and higher learning. As Businessweek reports, Tony Hey, Microsoft’s vice-president for external research predicts that clouds will, “function as huge virtual laboratories, with a new generation of librarians - some of them human - “curating” troves of data, opening them to researchers with the right credentials.”

This trend towards open clouds will not only help small businesses, scientists, and students, but it will also change the landscape of the internet. It will likely increase its size and scope dramatically, and allow us to connect across boundaries in record speed. These five companies are essentially setting themselves up as the world’s computer, with the internet as their operating system. They are providing top universities with the latest research into computing, not the other way around. Though it’s too early to tell whether the trend toward large-scale clouds will benefit the average user, it is certain to change the way we interact with each other through technology.

A new popularity contest has begun in the social bookmarking world. Yahoo! has just released the Beta version of Yahoo! Buzz, a user-ranked social bookmarking application that will allow users to share “the buzz.” According to Yahoo!, the buzz “can be about anything - a great story on a major news site, an extraordinary bit from an obscure site, an intriguing video, or a fantastic blog that shouldn’t be missed.” Ranking on this site is based on a point system, and the most “buzzworthy” stories may appear on the Yahoo! home page.

So what makes this social bookmarking site so unique? The ranking for each story is decided by three factors: the number of times a story is searched for on Yahoo!, the number of times a story is e-mailed from Buzz, and the number of votes the stories receive (collectively termed a “Buzz Score”). Other similar sites, such as Digg, rank articles based on a single group of results (usually, strictly based on votes or single views). In this way, Yahoo! believes that the user is able “to impact what millions will see on [the site].”

From my explorations of the new service, there is a wide range of popular searches. Yahoo! subscribers have been looking up stories and information on everything from Paris Fashion Week to Starbucks Coffee to Anne Frank. Buzz takes the phrase “live in the moment” to a whole new level. The site uniquely incorporates the most current news and blog postings into the algorithm they use to determine rankings, which set it apart from competitors. This Web 2.0 strategy not only incorporates user-generated content, but also provides a way for frequently-updated sites to jump ahead of those which are more static. Search engines love new content, and Yahoo! has taken this preference to new heights.

An interesting point to consider is if the launch of Yahoo! Buzz will have any effect on the current Microsoft/Yahoo! deal. Recently, we published a story regarding Microsoft’s attempt of buying out Yahoo!. Certainly, the success of Yahoo! Buzz would be yet another reason why such a deal would be beneficial for Microsoft, who have struggled in the online area due to a lack of web experience. Access to applications such as this, as well as all of the other features that Yahoo! has to offer, would propel Microsoft into the web arena they are so eager to enter.

Review of Yahoo! Buzz are mixed, to say the least. One argument focuses on the fact that the site currently has less than 100 pre-approved news publishers, which pales in comparison to sites like Digg. However, this will also ensure that these sites will be able to handle the traffic flow generated by Buzz users (the same cannot be said for Digg). And, while there are those who believe that Digg is still superior, there are others who feel that Yahoo! may be on to something. As blogger Matthew Ingram puts it, “I think the Digg gang can probably sleep safe at night for a little while, but Yahoo could turn out to be a strong competitor.” I think so, too, Matthew.

Just like during your high school days, web success is based on popularity. Yahoo! Buzz offers users the chance to explore the most popular websites, blogs, and web entertainment out there today. Surely, this will prove to be a successful application for Yahoo! (and who knows….perhaps Microsoft as well?).

Many industry experts, journalists, and bloggers have expressed their displeasure with Microsoft’s possible takeover of Yahoo!. Though the executives at Yahoo! have so far rejected the $41.7 billion offer, many expect a deal will be reached at a higher price, much to the dismay of the lion’s share of writers on the subject. As Jerry Yang, Yahoo!’s CEO, fends off the strong arm tactics of Steve Ballmer at Microsoft, we find ourselves rooting for him without knowing exactly why. Is it because we like the underdog? Or just because we hate Microsoft? Is there anything positive that could come out of this deal for consumers?

Yahoo! has been spiraling downward for quite awhile, and they haven’t been able to compete with search engine giant Google. Google has inked deal after deal with rival companies, perhaps the most important being the acquisition of DoubleClick, an internet advertising broker, which gives Google even more control over how ads reach internet users. The DoubleClick deal was cleared by the FCC after months of hearings, but is still awaiting approval by European courts. Yahoo! has lost ground to Google consistently when it comes to search technology and advertising, though Microsoft’s offer clearly intends to buck this trend.

Almost every news source covering the deal mentions that Microsoft wants a piece of the internet advertising industry. Perhaps together Yahoo! and Microsoft can present a viable alternative to Google for both search users and advertisers. The key to developing solid, targeted ad technology is collecting user behavior data, which is one thing at which Yahoo! has always excelled. As the Seattle Times reports, “Yahoo assembles a profile of a person’s behavior based on searches within Yahoo, videos watched, ads clicked and visits to Yahoo sites and partner sites such as eBay. The profile that emerges could have details such as a person’s basic salary, health concerns, cars, number of children, gender, age, ZIP code, industry and work.” Yahoo! is able to collect these detailed profiles in a way that Microsoft is not, and the information could lead to a vast improvement in Microsoft’s presence and success online.

Aside from the expected boost in Microsoft’s online ad chops, industry experts are speculating about the company’s possible plans to expand online software efforts. As the Wall Street Journal reported last week, “the company’s products face pressure to evolve as the rise of online services changes how people use technology.” Microsoft is being outmatched by the Software As A Service (SAAS) industry right now, and they rely almost exclusively on traditional software licensing for their revenue. Their competition comes from SAAS vendors who provide value to business users by hosting applications on proprietary servers, freeing businesses from expensive data centers and draconian licensing fees.

The Yahoo! deal could help Microsoft transition into the online software arena. As British insurance company Aviva PLC told the Wall Street Journal, “[the company] hopes Microsoft will combine Yahoo’s online software and knowledge of how the Internet works with Microsoft’s understanding of how a business operates to develop innovative corporate software.” If the deal goes through, Microsoft should be making plans to harness not only Yahoo!’s potential for ad revenue but also their expertise in web applications.

This dual strategy would push them towards the ultimate goal of competing with Google, which has an early lead in providing office tools through web applications. Google Apps, which includes word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation programs is becoming more and more popular with businesses of all sizes. Microsoft has made some moves to allow online access to its Office Suite, and perhaps with help from Yahoo!’s experts they will bring their software to the next generation of delivery.

Speculation is still all over the board, and it will likely be quite awhile until a deal is reached. One has to wonder, due to the recent fine imposed by the EU against Microsoft for a record $1.4 billion, if a merger of the two will be approved by government anti-trust groups. While I definitely sympathize with the folks at Yahoo! and hope against hope that they will be able to fight off the acquisition, there just might be some benefits for users in the long run. Most of us are stuck with Microsoft our software provider whether we like it or not, and a deal with Yahoo! just may give them the innovative approach they need to please us.

“Raise more money, transform operations, and build stronger donor relationships.” This is the promise of Salesforce.com’s foray into the political arena, a new service called CampaignForce. With the recent proliferation of Software As A Service (SAAS) products and increasingly tech-savvy political candidates, it’s no surprise to see a service like CampaignForce marketed to campaign managers. Salesforce’s political product is meant to help candidates run their campaigns like a business and treat their supporters like customers.

CampaignForce works much like Salesforce’s other SAAS options, which focus on customer relationship management (CRM). The idea is to give campaign staffers the same quick access to donor information and statistics that customer service reps have to client information. Candidates and staffers can view an easy-to-read landing page which displays pertinent data such as recent polls, fundraising progress, outreach efforts, and public appearances. The user-friendly interface can even be paired with other applications to pull data from YouTube (to see how many hits campaign ads are receiving) and generate financial reports for the Federal Election Committee, saving staffers time and ensuring the accuracy of the records.

One of the biggest benefits of using a web-based service rather than traditional software is the ability to access information at any time, from any location with internet access. This is especially applicable to political candidates, who are constantly on the move. Staffers in a mobile command center (like a wired RV or bus) would still have the ability to serve the needs of donors, journalists, and voters. CampaignForce is hosted on Salesforce servers, eliminating the need for complicated and costly data centers.

As of February 4th, a Salesforce press release revealed that their services are being used by nearly 30 political campaigns. It’s no surprise that one early adopter was Republican contender Mitt Romney, who suspended his campaign on February 7th. The veteran businessman raised $20.7 million in the first quarter of 2007, despite polls showing him behind Guiliani and McCain. Romney’s campaign manager Alex Burgos reportedly attributed the fundraising success to CampaignForce. Ron Paul is another remarkable fundraiser, and his campaign, well-known for their Web 2.0 efforts, also uses CampaignForce.

While some candidates jump at the chance to store their data on Salesforce servers, the service got a slow start. In an interview with eWeek, senior VP of global public policy Dan Burton says, “They’re [candidates] wary of putting data on the internet. They’re just now awakening to this potential.” However, as this type of data hosting service becomes more and more popular among businesses, it’s only a matter of time before campaign managers join the enterprise world in welcoming SAAS technology.

Adobe has long been known for their software applications which appeal to designers, developers, businesses, and everyday users. They are now making a series of moves into the “Software As A Service” (SAAS) industry, in a clear attempt to compete with Google and Microsoft. At the Max show late last year, Adobe announced their plans for a new file-sharing service called Share, which will allow users to create, organize, publish, and collaborate through web-based applications. The first step in this SAAS direction was their purchase of Virtual Ubiquity and its online word processor called Buzzword.

Virtual Ubiquity was based in Waltham, MA, and CEO Rick Treitman told eWeek that the plan for Buzzword was to, “build a full-featured word processor that made no sacrifice about running on the Web.” The goal with Buzzword was to work with the endless possibilities of web-based applications to create a user experience that was not only convenient, but also slick-looking. As Treitman commented to eWeek, “We tried everything - Java, .NET, AJAX, and we settled on Flash.” Adobe’s popular plugin was the tool Virtual Ubiquity used to deliver an interactive, real-time word processor that delivered a uniquely “online” experience.

With Adobe’s acquisition of Buzzword, the site was launched to critical acclaim. Buzzword feels more professional than Google Docs, allowing users to create documents which incorporate graphics and images for a business presentation, a poster, or an advertisement. Like Docs, Buzzword allows you to share and collaborate on documents without using attachments, which solves the problem of multiple versions. Users can specify the level of access to any document, allowing one colleague to become a co-editor while limiting another to read-only privileges. Any collaborator can add comments to a sidebar, allowing the team to suggest changes without making them permanent. The Share service will also give users 1 GB of free storage online.

Aside from the sleek design typical of Adobe products, the Flash-based word processor boasts a powerful “help” system to assist those of us who are slow to learn new applications. In addition to pop-up prompts that provide keyboard commands, Buzzword has a great help center accessible from a drop-down menu at the top of every document. And when an action fails (like pasting an image from the clipboard) the user is immediately notified as to why it happened and how to fix it. In addition to the hand-holding for new users, the online word processor is open to comments and discussions from the community. Buzzword’s discussion forum provides a place for users to get together for problem solving, and also features a virtual “suggestion box” for improving the service. Many user questions are answered by the big wigs at Virtual Ubiquity/Adobe itself, which adds to the sense of community.

Buzzword is especially useful for documents containing images, tables, or graphics, as images can be dragged and dropped with text flowing automatically around them. With the expansion of the Share service, Adobe will allow developers to create mashups with their Flex applications using Flash previews of documents from Buzzword. This kind of integration and flexibility is key for any designers or developers who use online word processors, and it is a distinct advantage over Google Apps, which does not have the software to compliment their SAAS offerings.

However, in my exploration of Buzzword I have noticed several problems that are reflected in the user discussion forums. First things first: it takes a while to load. Granted, Flash pieces are nice visually, but they can sometimes get in the way of a good user experience. Buzzword can sometimes take as much as 15 seconds to get going, which could be a turnoff to impatient users. As a writer, I rely on a solid thesaurus, which is not built-in to Buzzword. This feature is in the works, though not in the near future.

As an editor, I also love being able to open two documents side by side (in tabs within the same browser window). Buzzword does not allow you have multiple documents open at the same time in the same window, which is essential in some business settings. Also, perhaps the biggest barrier to successful competition with Google and Microsoft is the lack of spreadsheet or presentation apps. Adobe is not likely to overlook these functions for long, as it is an often requested feature on their discussion forum. For now, though, Buzzword looks like it will be the main focus of their SAAS efforts.

Buzzword is currently free, though industry experts predict that a premium service of some sort will develop with the expansion of the Share service. Overall, Buzzword is a solid product and good tool for Adobe to test the SAAS waters. The interface is friendly and attractive, and it’s likely to appeal to a more enterprise/developer audience than Google Apps. As the product continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how Adobe positions itself in this emerging world of online document creation, sharing, and storage.

For more information or to sign up for Buzzword, visit www.buzzword.com.