Thanks to Tim Appnel, I was directed to a great article by Om Malik: Web Office Vs. Microsoft Office.

Here’s the basics:

• Red Herring says there are at least 17 companies trying to built Web versions of MS Office.
• Liam Breck doesn’t buy the hype.   He called Web Versions of MS Office a “Tiny Niche“
• Ever since I wrote a paper called “The Next Wave in Productivity Tools: Web Office“, I have tried to tell folks that just making a web based spreadsheet or presentation tool isn’t going to cut it.   Web Office should not be just about making web versions of MS Office.   Back in March 2006, I wrote this:

 If you are part of a team building an AJAX powered alternative to Word or Excel, you should instead apply your amazing talent to building a social application that can take advantage of all the power that simple, plain old xHTML brings to the table.

The enterprise already has basic desk top applications and shared drives. The enterprise lacks an integrated Web Office solution that adds to the list of existing applications. Very few big companies have everyone blogging internally. Very few big companies have figured out how to use internal Wikis.

No big company that I know of is currently using internal blogs, wikis, social bookmarks, social networks, RSS calendars, pod casting and tagging to empower their knowledge workers. There are a few technology companies that have internal blogs and Wikis, but they have been set up in haphazard fashion, with no unified structure for cleanly integrating things like LDAP or information from back-end systems.

• Om agrees.   He says: “I agree - Web Office should not be about replacing the old, but inventing the new web apps that solve some specific problems.”

Although, I will call Om on one thing: Web Office or Enterprise 2.0 applications should not about “solving problems” - as in providing end solutions.    Instead, at their best, Web Office should provide productivity tools that knowledge workers can use to build their own ad-hoc solutions.

Microsoft’s new Excel Services is a perfect example.   Excel Services gives any knowledge worker the ability to turn their spreadsheets into an online application at the press of a button.   There are no rows and columns.   The online application looks like a real Web 2.0 application built in C#, Ruby or Java.

Excel Services turns Excel into an Integrated Development Environment for business people who do not know how to code.

This is the real vision of Enterprise 2.0 / Web Office / Office 2.0.   It is the radical shift from IT developing full solutions to a new era, where IT provides productivity tools and knowledge workers use those tools to build end solutions.

Enterprise 2.0 is the infrastructure that supports end users building their own solutions.   More on this later.