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Is Adobe Getting into the Apps Game?

Microsoft just can’t get any peace. With Google Apps eroding the need to own a copy of Microsoft Office, and Zoho improving where Apps leaves off, the Word/Excel monopoly may be fast seeing sundown.

And the end may be sooner than expected, now that Adobe’s announced it’s going to purchase Virtual Ubiquity, the company that produces an offering called Buzzword.

According to Reuters, Buzzword includes “high-quality typography, advanced graphic capabilities and page-layout controls that text editors on the Web all lack.” And in Adobe’s capable hands, Buzzword has the potential to change the way we interact with word processors, a sector whose development pretty much stopped with Microsoft Word.

Buzzword’s trump card? It can run both online and off; that is, it’s both browser- and desktop-friendly. The solution can apparently tell whether you’re on or offline, if you’ve been abruptly disconnected while using the program in a browser. Then it adjusts settings accordingly.

This is something that Microsoft Word, which is strictly offline, and Google Docs, which is strictly online, cannot do. And while Zoho flirts with the capability, it’s a pretty barebones offering compared to Buzzword.

Adobe is also working on a file-sharing service for online documents that enable users to swap and edit on the ‘net. The offering will include user privileges (accessible versus restricted).

And while this capability isn’t new, it’ll definitely strengthen the world of word processing when coupled with Buzzword.

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