Adobe Reveals Planned Purchase Of Online Word Processor

Just when you think there couldn't possibly be any more news to be posted about Web-based word processors and things, at least for a short while, Adobe comes out with an announcement of its intentions to get into the game. Yes, that’s right, Adobe is joining the fray.

I honestly can’t imagine why Adobe would do such a thing. It is more than anything else a graphics-based company, with its hand firmly planted in the worlds of photography, video, and Web design. Why on earth would it involve itself in something so mundane and so boring as word processing? Perhaps because it’s consumers produce things, and word processors fall into the realm of productivity utilities? Hmm. Don’t know. Can’t tell you.

What I can divulge is the simple truth that Adobe has gone and bought Buzzword, a pretty, little-known (today is the first I’ve learned of its existence) Web-based document creator of the Zoho, Google Docs, ThinkFree vein, owned by the company Virtual Ubiquity (oh how Web 2.0 of them to arrive at such a title) for an undisclosed sum.

(Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch has revealed that Adobe’s $100 million venture fund invested in the startup in the past. I presume the number on the check is slightly less than that figure.)

Some facts about Buzzword:

It’s built on Adobe’s Flex platform, allowing for it to take advantage of the Flash component integral to Adobe’s success today. Also, it’s said that an Adobe AIR version of Buzzword is “in the works” for an assumed 2008 release, which would make for seamless online-offline transitions.

Oh, and did I mention it’s pretty? Awful pretty. I dare say it’s more attractive than Microsoft’s equivalent (though of course much more powerful) desktop-based offering.

Clearly the war in the world of Web-based productivity apps is heating up. Updates are emerging from every direction, bridges for online and offline use with this new wave of applications are being built this very moment, and day by day, more and more people are finding more reasons to abandon the old world for the new, starting with tasks as simple as creating documents, sharing them, and even collaborating on them in real time. It’s a great moment for Web 2.0.

Count on 2008 being the year for intense competition in the productivity application space. It’ll certainly be very interesting to see how things shake out. There’s no doubt that Microsoft has a great deal of work cut out for itself in the next few months. We might just see a significant reshuffling of the market.

Very interesting indeed.