The process of creating, PDF'ing, and emailing a spreadsheet or Word document is as ingrained in business culture as is the speaker phone - however, you have to admit it is a cumbersome process.
Web 2.0 based applications promise to free us from this multistep process by allowing web-based applications to create documents that live on the web, not email.
These applications are in their infancy right now so I don't think this will happen soon.
But when it does, the Mighty Microsoft will have to adapt or go the way of the horse and buggy manufacturers of yesteryear.
For example, Intel has just announced a new Web 2.0 Office based suite, called SuiteTwo, that will feature blogging, RSS feeds from Newsgator, a Wiki, and search tools. The Early Stage VC blog announces that Ajax based office products are everywhere, and that web based applications make more sense as we are not desktop bound workers anymore. Aptly named Thinkfree has a full suite of online Microsoft compatible office products available now as well. They offer a free teaser of 1Gb storage.
Zimbra has been profiled in many blogs, and is also gaining ground with their office suite that includes VoIP, email, and web-based document creation and sharing.
Microsoft, the writing is on the wall....er, should I say Window?
