Could you ever imagine computing without Microsoft?

No?

Microsoft sees it coming and they are falling all over themselves to be a major player in the next wave of the home computer revolution – Web 2.0 – where the Internet is the platform.

You’ve heard the term tossed around and not many can define it, but Web 2.0 is this:

Computing without installing software. The program is on the web, not your computer. Actually, Web 2.0 is only part of the next computing wave. Cloud computing includes both the commercial sensibilities of Web 2.0 and the harnessing of vast numbers of idle cycles of connected computers. And Microsoft head is in the wrong cloud.

You just point your browser (or other client software) at a place on the Internet to, say, manage your appointments, perform word processing, file your taxes, keep in contact with your colleagues, manage your finances, edit and print your photos, play games, or perform any other activity that (once upon a time) you could only do with installed software.

(Yes, we know there are activities requiring the full computing horsepower that only installed software can offer right now, such as editing video, multi-track recording, 3D modeling, and the like – but not to worry, Microsoft doesn’t make any of that stuff.)

You won’t need Microsoft Office, FrontPage, MS Money, or any other Microsoft product. You won’t even need ***gasp*** Windows. You just need any old operating system that gives you a browser that understands Web 2.0 fundamentals and, poof, “Bob’s your uncle.”

Chances are, you’re using just such a browser right now! So congratulations, you’ve got everything you need at your fingertips!

According to O’Reilly Media, “If Netscape was the standard bearer for Web 1.0, Google is most certainly the standard bearer for Web 2.0, if only because their respective IPOs were defining events for each era.” Web 1.0 was about getting to the Internet and exploring that great big bulletin board. Web 2.0 is all about web services that have the potential to replace many of the functions your computer performs for personal productivity and entertainment.

No wonder Microsoft is SO desperate to buy Yahoo!

Go check out Google Docs, or Tax Cut Online, Wikipedia, Facebook or any of the thousands of blog sites, and you’ll soon discover what’s making Microsoft sweat! You’ll see you don’t need Microsoft.

Even now Microsoft is pouring tons of cash to produce an online version Microsoft Office and copy what Google Docs has done. Microsoft’s .NET is a virtual machine technology intended to rival Java’s virtual machine platform.

And if you’ve used the latest MS Office suite, Office 2007, and have marveled at (or as some have expressed, been perplexed by) the radically revised interface, you have seen the future! At least as Microsoft wants you to see it.Office 2007 is how the Microsoft Office future online service will appear and how the next version of Windows will behave.

The Office development team is racing  to make the installed version of Office (version 2007) appear like a seamless extension of Internet Explorer. It’s obvious to anyone who as toyed with the interface. (The structure of the menus and tabs button clusters are a snap to extend with new or differing features. Exactly what an online service could easily do.)

And someday when the time comes, Microsoft will nudge just a little, and people will be drawn to its (subscription based) online service.”See” they’ll say, “it looks and feels familiar – just like the software you used to install.”

Full disclosure time. We don’t hate Microsoft. They make some pretty cool stuff.We just think they have an unfair advantage. All the cash they make from having an operating system monopoly gives them deep enough pockets to engage in a computing arms race in any category of their choosing.

Microsoft knows how throw lots of money at a particular software category, never turn a profit in that division for the first several years, outspend and outlast the competition while tying up distribution channels, and suddenly, they own the category and the customer base.

See what Microsoft has done  with the likes of Lotus, WordPerfect, PostScript Typefaces and Palm; and what they are trying to do in light of the success of the Playstation. Yahoo and Google. (We can only hope Adobe can continue their current success with their category leading products.)

But enough about Microsoft (literally).

Check out the Web 2.0 section of PC Rebellion and you’ll be amazed what you can do without installing any software. And it’s all free (even the stuff in the list with Microsoft’s name on it).

Welcome to Web 2.0.

PC Reb

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