Software as a Service - AJAXwrite.com

Michael Robertson (mp3.com founder) is at it again. He just launched AjaxWrite.com.. It is a web based word processor in the "software as a service' vein. This web based word processor will read and write Microsoft word documents.

I spent my fifteen minutes playing with it, but walked away with mixed feelings.

first I opened an existing document (the letterhead for my company). It opened w/o problems. I typed "The Quick Brown Fox Jumped over the Lazy Dogs" then selected save as. I window popped up which allowed me to select the type of document, MS Word, RTF, Text, or PDF). I was only shown a cancel button, as the pop-up wasn't big enough to show me the ok button too. I didn't know the ok button was there until i expanded the window. I selected "MS Word" and clicked okay. The Firefox "Save As" dialog box popped up, where I could either open the document immediatley or download it. I decided to download and saved the file as "Test.doc". Once it downloaded I opened the doc and found an empty word doc, without my letter head graphics or any of the text I added. My second attempt at saving gave me an error.

Nice try; but it needs work.

Keep a watch at the AJAX Launch where Michael has promised to release a new product every Wednesday at 12:00 PST. He mentioned Adobe specifically in his announcement, but is unclear of he what program he wants to go after I can't imagine that Premiere or video tools would have a benefit to working remotely, and I suspect that neither would image tools. Perhaps that leaves programs like Dreamweaver or Flash?

I'm not sold on the Software as a service idea.