Adobe enters the web office fray

While Microsoft is taking steps to web-ify its offline office suite, Adobe is joining the crowded field of companies offering web-based office applications. Adobe is buying Virtual Ubiquity, makers of Buzzword, a new online word processor. At the same time, the company is launching a beta of a new document sharing service cleverly titled "Share." (Don't worry that's just an internal codename. Rest assured it will probably be renamed something like "Adobe Share" by the time it's officially launched).

Buzzword was already built using Adobe's Flex environment, which means it runs inside of a web browser using the same Flash player you need to watch YouTube videos. An offline version of Buzzword is expected next year.

It's a full-featured word processor, with support for tables, images, page breaks, and pretty much anything you'd want in a word processor. Well, almost. Apparently it doesn't support hyperlinks, which is a bit baffling. Adobe plans to integrate Buzzword and Share, letting you create documents, store them online and share them with other users.

Tags: buzzword, flash, share, virtual-ubiquity, web-office, word-processor