and no offline mode.. ha ha to [G**gle]

Techcrunch posts that LiveDocuments is powerfull stuff

This is a powerful application that addresses one of the primary benefit of wikis and online Word clones like Zoho Writer and Writely – collaboration via the Internet. The functionality from th…

1. put up a public SVN server with a web interface
2. ???
3. profit!

but yeah zoho writer should be the one rushing to try and make a partnership with this.

As long as they keep it dead-simple, I’ll use it.

I work on massively complex Fortune 500 web applications, but when it comes to tools the simpler and more direct, the better.

The comparison with Microsoft Sharepoint and the confusing name …..

Sumanth, yes your company should expect a call from Microsoft legal department soon, ….. not kidding ….

Excellent points Scott, this is what we have found at Omnidrive. All the office apps have native WebDAV support so having a ‘file at a URL’ can be done without any plugins.

I also forgot about Groove, great product, looking forward to it being released again but we all know the acquisition was for Ray Ozzie.

In response to some of the comments made above:

Just for the record, this is NOT a Microsoft product – we are a small startup based in Bangalore, India – we are using the word “Live” in a generic sense (hope MS does not have a monopoly/legal claim on that term…)

Regarding the comments made about Foldershare, Groove, iFolder et al – while all of these are great products, Live Documents is significantly different from all of them in three ways:
a) All these solutions either require a server where the documents are centrally stored or alternatively have clearly-defined peer nodes where files need to be stored for file replication. In our case, the documents could reside anywhere on the edge- on any system, as a file attachment in your e-mail – or on a shared drive or web repositary – it does not matter as we synchronize the file only when it is actually opened in Microsoft Office.
b) All changes made to the document are audited and reported – so every document copy carries a full history of the changes that were made since the document was last opened. I am not sure if any of the file replication/synchronization services provide transparency to such a granular level.
c) We are attempting to get closer towards the Holy Grail of contextual collaboration – with the Live Document providing the context anchor within the applications that are used to create these documents. Collaboration happens in multiple dimensions from allowing users to assign and manage document-centric tasks like approvals and reviews from within the document context to conducting discussions around the documents through the embedded toolbar. In all of the solutions mentioned above, the documents are simply elements that flow in and out of the system and the collaborative elements are in a separate silo – collaboration happens “around the document” (either in a web browser or in a fat client) and not “within the document”.

Finally @ABCotaa – I am not sure if we qualify as a Web 2.0/Office 2.0 application – we are just hoping to provide a solution that people will find useful for document sharing…I hope you will agree that in the final analysis, solving a pain point is more important than conforming to the specifications of a meme…

Warm Regards,
Sumanth