Richard MacManus claims that Web 2.0 is dead, because as a marketing term it has been over-hyped.

Web 2.0 may or may not be a useful term, but the business need for Web Office is here to stay.

As readers of this site know, I am currently heading up a project to build an enterprise blogging solution at one of the big-4 audit/consulting firms. There are over 130,000 people in my firm.

Internal enterprise blogs, enterprise wikis and technology like microformats are going to radically change the way the people work.

Maybe Microsoft is going to dominate this space with Office Live. Maybe the rest of the industry (the former Web 2.0 crew) is going to beat them to the punch.

Innovation Creators, makes the simple business argument that in today's hyper competitive environment, companies must pursue a strategy of constant innovation. If you are running a bank or a big manufacturing company, the idea of constant innovation is probably something fairly new to you. Compare the number of innovations that come out of Apple (iPod, iMac) to say the number that come out of Dell. Or compare the new pill bottles at Target to nothing new at the other drug stores. BTW, good marketing, great design and packaging are innovations, just as much as fancy new electronic or software wizardry.

If are the CEO of a big company and you want to pursue a strategy of constant innovation, you need to copy good innovators, like Google. Google enlists every engineer in the cause of innovating. I bet that Dell's engineers do not spend 20% of their time on their own projects.

Recently, Business 2.0 asked Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt if Google has some kind of grand strategic plan for the new products it creates?

Dr. Schmidt replied "Virtually everything new seems to come from the 20 percent of their time engineers here are expected to spend on side projects. They certainly don’t come out of the management team."

Google uses internal enterprise blogs and wikis to help their people to efficiently communicate.

A unified, easy to use system of enterprise blogs and wikis are the beginnings of what will become Web Office technology. Web Office will not look like MS Office. For one thing, there will be no Word Processors.

For a fast definition, Web Office is a set tools that enable Knowledge Workers to consume, create and efficiently share content, structured data and analysis.

I can tell you that I know what my firm wants and needs from Web Office. My article Top 15 Requirements for Web Office is a beginning, though I think I need to add microforamts to the list. I can also tell you that my main role is working as a consultant who deals with top financial institutions, including many of the top US banks and hedge funds. I can see that our clients want and need the same thing we do.

Finally, I can tell you that no vendor that I have seen actually has anything like the complete package of Web Office solutions we want and need to turn our knowledge workers into innovation creators.

Web 2.0 may be dead (as a useful marketing term), but Web Office has only just begun.