BP5_2009102_Web2.0 Evaluaton_Desktop Tools

What does the future hold for client-based desktop productivity suites? The end of the story will be interesting indeed. As sites like Google Docs (other options include Zoho and Open Office) incorporate more robust client-based attributes, they become more popular and attract the attention of students and small business alike. Client-based productivity suites, like MS Office, are taking measures to incorporate more web-based applications, to compete with the collaborative and open-source attributes of web-based productivity tools.


Why should this interest students and educators? Until recently, productivity tools had to be purchased individually (or collectively for an institution), and remain resident on individual machines. Collaboration required information to be passed back-and-forth, which is relatively archaic compared to the nature of the technology being utilized. Even after products were complete, the user would have to transfer data to an instructor either electronically or physically via paper or storage device. Online productivity tools allow for synchronous or asynchronous editing by multiple people. This eliminates the "slow-poke" method of passing info back-and-forth in order to collaborate.


Slightly more underrated is the elimination of the need for individuals to invest in personal copies of expensive client-based software. All members of a group or class can access the same web-based software, creating uniformity in application and processing. Why will people continue to pay premium prices for software that is not much different from that which available online free of charge? Web-based applications are still vulnerable to connectivity problems that can impact the internet in a number of ways. Google suffered this reality just last month. Even a 100-minute outage may not seem so bad, but for a business or student depending upon the utilization of that software, the results could be crushing.

Web-based productivity suites ultimately provide a common platform for students, regardless of whether they have the means at home to access it or not. At school or at home, documents can be accessed, updated, and reviewed without the need of a personal copy of a productivity suite. Instructors can easily access final products through sharing capabilities built into the software itself. For most educational purposes (especially the k-12 level) the web-based platforms are already robust enough to satisfy the needs of any student task.