SALON

Cyrus Farivar

Thursday, Oct 30, 2008 2:42 PM UTC

Microsoft to move Office apps to “the cloud”

And why I won't be using them.

By

Topics:

Earlier this week Microsoft announced that it would be moving its Office suite of applications — you know, Word, PowerPoint and Excel — to the Web. This is part of a larger trend of tech companies moving stuff off individual computers and onto what’s known in the industry as “the cloud,” which is just a fancy way of saying that the programs exist online. With ubiquitous connectivity via laptops and mobile phones, all of that data becomes accessible all the time. Google Docs and all of its related applications (Reader, Gmail, etc.) are obviously cloud-based, as is Apple’s Mobile Me syncing system.

While it’s pretty clear how this is useful in a business-type situation, I don’t think I’ll be transitioning to using entirely Web-based apps anytime soon. Heck, even with Gmail around, I still prefer to download my e-mail the old-fashioned way, using a POP3 mail client (I roll with Thunderbird). And I’ll keep doing my writing in a similar fashion, pounding out my words on a no-frills text editor to just get my words out onto the page, and in Microsoft Word for serious formatting, line editing and spell checking.

The thing about using offline programs that don’t require a network connection to maintain is that they’re responsive and easy to use. I can be anywhere and draft an e-mail, just like I can be anywhere and put words to a screen. I don’t have to worry about whether other people on the network I’m using are hogging all the bandwidth by downloading BitTorrent files. Even in the age of Internet access from just about every corner of the country, not to mention the globe (I’m blogging this week from a rural village in Corsica), there are still places and moments when you have a slow connection at best, or none at all. Using Gmail on a slow connection is simply painful. Trying to edit a large document in a similar environment will be too.

Further, your computer (or heck, your iPhone) has much more power — because there’s only one person using it at a time (you) — than any cloud-based service ever will. The response time between my keyboard and my text editor will always be faster than the response time between my keyboard, Google Docs and its servers and then back to my eyeballs.

Plus, I want control of my data, e-mails and documents alike. I want to be responsible for them, and despite Google’s best intentions, don’t want my messages subject to subpoena. My e-mails stay on my computer, and I’m the only one who has access to it, and that’s just how I like it.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 39 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
225 points226 points | 7 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
166 points167 points | comment
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
130 points131 points | 34 comments
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
49 points50 points | 8 comments
vote
With the help of Photoshop, artist Yao Lu has made shanshui — traditional ink paintings — of China's landfills
27 points28 points | 1 comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations