AjaxWrite - MS Word on the web

We have been using MS word for years. I myself start to know MS Word since its version 2.0. Previously I am a big fan of Wordstar 4.0.

For now MS Word is the king of Word Processor application for years, nobody seems to be able to shake it.

Eventhough some alternative came, but they are always come in 2nd and 3rd :).

What do you think if you can use MS Word alternative from Web, Quite cool right?
The 1st free version www.writely.com has been bought over by Google so for now its no longer available until Google revamp it :).

Today I found another free version of MS Word alternative in the Web. The name is Ajaxwrite.
So what is exactly this Ajaxwrite? This is an application written using AJAX language so that you can experience a better application eventhough you are using a browser.

Normal Browser does now allow:
1. Drag and Drop
2. Pull Down Menu
3. Right Click Mouse

So with AJAX, all these can happens, so its another level of improvement for browsing experience:
1. Google Mail and Google Finance was using AJAX for the webpage
2. New Hotmail was using AJAX too.

More and more companies now using AJAX.


So after I try it out this morning, here is my comments:
The Application itself is very user friendly but, the its still not fast enough since they will need to bring down the application to my PC. the speed is not fast enough yet.

Especially after the announcement by the CEO, A lot of people trying to access this webpage, now I could not even enter the webpage anymore :P.

For those of you that are interested:
http://www.ajaxwrite.com

I have tried myself in the morning, it looks great and very user friendly, you can do the basic operation:
1. Save a file
2. Open a file
3. Left , Right, Centre Justified
4. etc -> I will update it later

Pro:
1. Mimic MS Word so it will be easy to used for new people. (newbie)
2. Free
3. You need Firefox version 1.5 in order to use it. Internet Explorer wont work.

Cons:
1. Slow for now - you need high bandwith. This morning the speed is reasonable but now too slow, I could not get the application. I bet the webserver did NOT expect the announcement of this application will attrack too many people. So it bring down the website :)

2. For now it only support firefox v1.5. It will support IE and Safari (Apple OS) in the near future.

3. Web Server problem like today, oops, nobody can access the application. This is bad for user.



Conclution:
AJAX is a great language and definitely help the browsing experience especially with the drag and drop ability, Right click mouse, etc. But...for now, Ajax is not yet good enough for big application. The bandwith is just not fast enough to cater for it. For a local network its possible to deploy an AJAX application, but via internet :). Oops.... not yet..especially for those of you that are still using Modem or Bandwith cap. Just forget it :).

Soon, I can be changed when the bandwith is getting cheaper and 10Mbps is getting more common and cheap for normal average user :).

PS: voip used to be slow too when I am using modem, but when I upgrade to ADSL and cable modem, the experience differnet, I like voip now :)

so I believe the same thing will happen with AJAXwrite. For now, I will by pass this web application and will only used it on the "go". I will stick with MS word for now :)

More Info: http://www.ajaxwrite.com

cya.