Office 2.0: What's all the buzz?

Don't get me wrong. I used Microsoft Office very heavily in a former life and liked it -- especially Access (not a standard part of Office). But Office is overkill for most casual users. And it's *way* overpriced ($150-400), due to some shrewd moves by Bill in his former life. Word or Excel can also be challenging to use because they are bloated with rarely used features.

But the world is changing. (Funny how we often don't realize it at the time.) A new approach to "office" applications has emerging. It is changing the face of word processors, spreadsheets and the like. It's been dubbed "Office 2.0" by some. (Microsoft Office is up to 12.0 or something.)

But, it's easy to share those online documents. You can even work on them live with others. What if everyone helping to plan a family reunion could update a common spreadsheet with names, addresses, phone numbers, etc? They would be able to see who's missing, and work to finding them.

Or how about a potluck meal? You could keep track of what people are bringing, what you have too much of, and what's missing. What about planning a meeting. Online calendars let you see everyone's everyone's schedule in one place, making it easy to pick the best time?

Office 2.0 is about lite word processing, spreadsheets, calenders, etc, with access from any computer. It's also about seamless collaboration instead of working with clunky technology like email and telephone tag.