October 8th, 2005

Web-based Office Competition Heats Up

A major topic at the Web 2.0 Conference is the web-based office suite. The competition is getting heated, to say the least.

Many companies are throwing their bets into the ring, and several have released word processor type applications recently. One recently one was the minimalist Writeboard, released by the 37signals crew, riding an always excellent marketing job by those guys. One that seemed to have even more buzz here at Web 2.0 is Writely, which toats a more sophisticated interface and exports to Word format (a critical feature, in my opinion). There’s also Jotspot and many others.

The folks at TechCrunch have kept good tabs on the product announcements, and one of their latest reviews started a heated argument among the competitors (hat tip: Richard). Michael Arrington of Techcrunch wrote a review about a new word processor called Zoho Writer, and got replies from both the creators of Writeboard and Writely that it’s basically a ripoff of their software. (see comments after the review). They suggested that Arrington not write about people who copy their software.

All gossip aside, this signals an interesting turning point concerning all this new web-based software: direct competition. I dare say that none of these companies can lay claim to anything as their own idea, given that even I thought of a web-based office suite as a good idea many, many moons ago. (if I thought of it, then many other people thought of it many months before that). It’s not a large leap, to be sure. However, I would say that what got Jason and Sam (of Writeboard and Writely) upset was the fact that they were two of the first into the web-based app ring with their products. But whatever advantage they enjoyed being a first mover is largely gone.

I don’t mean to sound be flippant, but didn’t they expect this? Hadn’t they seen the writing on the wall, pardon the pun? This is what software development is all about (just ask Visicalc, Wordperfect, and Konfabulator), who largely innovated their respective products to usefulness and then were effectively killed off by competition from OS makers, forcing them to alter their initial strategy. Many mourn their demise, but most recognize the simple fact that there are many other software makers in the world, and far fewer obviously good ideas.

That said, their main point in rejecting the review was that Arrington hadn’t done due diligence in his analysis of Zoho, which seems correct. (It was more of a “look at this” sort of review.)

Even still, given this heated competition, there really hasn’t been any existing word-processing companies to enter the fray. When this happens, you can bet that competition will get even more fierce. Just ask any of the Blog reader makers how they felt when Google released their Google Reader software yesterday. There had to be at least an “Uh Oh”, despite all their assurances that Google is “just another competitor”.

It is safe to assume, I think, that over the next year competition in the web-based office arena will only get more heated. When this happens, I’ll still root for Writeboard and Writely because they were two of the first and most innovative, but honestly I think they have a steep hill to climb. Perhaps the comment by Sridhar , the Zoho Writer creator, seems most prescient. He responds to Jason and Sam (Writeboard and Writely), saying:

Zoho is not your threat. Wait till Google and Yahoo and Microsoft show up for the Web 2.0 party. If you believe they are not coming, I have a bridge to sell you.

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Comments ( 9 Responses so far )

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1. Dan Saffer on October 8th, 2005 (Comment) #

I wish I could get more excited about porting desktop software over to the web. It’s the dancing bear, to my mind. It’s not that it dances well, it’s that dances at all. The strength of the web is in its ability to make connections–interactions–between people. I’m not sure that Excel or Word on the web plays into that strength very well.

2. Jason Fried on October 8th, 2005 (Comment) #

Competition of ideas is one thing, but taking someone’s execution (in the case of a web app that’s the interface), slapping another name on it and calling it “competition” is not competition, it’s theft and plagerism.

In the book world, if you take someone’s writing and call it your own that’s plagerism. In the software world if you take someone’s concept AND interface that’s the same type of plagerism.

Concepts and ideas alone are not unique. What’s unique is the execution of the idea. When you take someone’s execution you are plagerizing.

3. Josh on October 9th, 2005 (Comment) #

Jason, I agree with you in principle. However, the history of software has shown to be much different than the history of writing…the copyright issues are much more vague.

Because you’re a developer, you would know more about this than I would: what exactly can you protect in an interface? I wonder if you guys at 37Signals might have a tougher time of it than most, since you ascribe to the “less is better” principle, which for new products sounds reasonable but leaves you with a smaller number of relatively easy-to-copy features.

Practically speaking, if Zoho isn’t breaking any laws, they become competition, do they not? Just like every other online music service is competition for iTunes, I guess.

Doesn’t make it right, of course.

4. Sridhar Vembu on October 10th, 2005 (Comment) #

Jason:
May be you are too young to know this, there was a lawsuit by Apple against MS Windows, claiming that they copied the Apple Mac UI. The court threw it out entirely.

Internet Explorer v3 had the same buttons and the same UI as Netscape Navigator 3, which itself was preceded by Mosaic.

Plagiarism has a precise meaning. Did we copy ANY of your code anywhere? The UI looks similar, but everything was written from scratch.

I challenge you to sue us if you feel you have a case. And yes, I will sue you if you do not stop your reckless defamation. Go look up “commercial defamation”. The laws are stronger here when commercial considerations are involved, and you are a competitor defaming us. It is not simply free speech.

As a technical and business person, I generally do not like to involve legalities, but you are taking your reckless commentary too far.

Your problem is that you have an underfeatured, underpowered application, for which you are overcharging. It worked for sometime, and it will soon stop working. So you are whining in every possible forum. Welcome to the real world.

Sridhar

5. Sridhar Vembu on October 10th, 2005 (Comment) #

To add to the above post, ZohoPlanner was a fun project done precisely because you keep taunting users to take a hike if they want more (or for less). Our philosophy is to offer “More for Less”, and let’s see how that does against your “Less is Less” (which really comes down to “Less for More” when we strip away your sanctimonious preaching, and come right down to the dollars and cents). Customers aren’t dumb.

6. TechCrunch on October 10th, 2005 (Comment) #

I’m glad to see that this debate is no longer taking place on TechCrunch. Guys, just build software and stop snipping.

7. Sridhar Vembu on October 10th, 2005 (Comment) #

TechCrunch:
I agree with you. I hate to be doing this myself. We prefer to simply write code and compete harder. Our philosophy is not to beat our own drum all the time, but let the customers experience the product. But when we are attacked unfairly and in such terms as Jason has done (it is beyond mere criticism), we had to respond. Please notice that we don’t go around posting anywhere, other than to respond.

We simply aimed for compatibility in ZohoPlanner with the market leading competitor, an entirely legitimate and ethical business practice. With the basic stuff covered, now we are rapidly adding new features.

His agenda seems to be to try to delegitimize a legitimate competitor by throwing mud. He will fail.

8. Ranjith on October 11th, 2005 (Comment) #

——
Michael Arrington of Techcrunch wrote a review about a new word processor called Zoho Writer, and got replies from both the creators of Writeboard and Writely that it’s basically a ripoff of their software. (see comments after the review).
——

I think there is a mis-understanding here. You guys are confusing between Zoho Writer & Zoho Planner which are 2 different services.

In Techcrunch, Mike wrote a review about Zoho Writer ( online word processor ) in which he mentioned “Check out Zoho’s BackPack-like product Zoho Planner too”. There was no review written by Mike on Zoho Planner.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2005/10/02/zoho-writers-ajax-word-processor/

For this, Jason immediately attacked Mike with “it hurts your credibility to support these sorts of businesses and ventures.”

In the review, Mike also compared Zoho Writer with Writely “In fact, it’s pretty much exactly like Writely, except they do not yet support Word format import/export or tagging (coming soon).”. FYKI, Zoho Writer is released just within 2 weeks of release of Writely.

Sam of Writely was not comfortable with this statement as he cannot agree a statement which equals competition with them ( IMHO, its users feedback which matters a lot than what the creator claims ). But Sam immediately responded with a comment requesting Mike to be more accurate “I think Michael can review whatever he wants. I just objected to the statement “Zoho…is as good as the rest.”… & “I’d like TechCrunch to be a little more accurate if it’s going to actually review products, instead of just notify folks about them.”

It’s mention about Zoho Planner in the review which Jason talk about & not Zoho Writer. Zoho Writer have no similarities with Writeboard. Zoho Writer is positioned as fully functional online word processor.

Zoho Planner is competing against Backpackit offering similar feature set ( interface copy as said by Jason is a LIE & anyone can verify it themself ) and that’s the reason why Jason wants to bad mouth about it everywhere. This shows Jason is not used to competition before.

Here is a URL to one of Backpackit Forums post. This justifies the existence of Zoho Planner ( We want to offer online organizer for the masses by making it very affordable ).

http://www.backpackit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=240&p=1

Mike ( Techcrunch ): Please correct me if I have mentioned anything wrong here.

Thanks,
Ranjith.

Web-based Office Competition Heats Up

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