10 YEARS AGO HE SOLD HOTMAIL TO MICROSOFT FOR US$400 MILLION.
10 YEARS LATER HE IS GOING FOR MICROSOFT OFFICE JUGULAR VEIN !
WILL MICROSOFT PAYS HIM US$4 BILLION* OUT OF THE US$20 BILLION OFFICE BUSINESS, TO TAKE OVER LIVE DOCUMENTS ?
*10 YEARS = 10 TIMES MORE : Sounds logical.
Read the breaking news from TechShout :
Today InstaColl, an Indian software product company announced the launch of a hybrid online-offline Office suite of applications called Live Documents. This revolutionary product supports documents, spreadsheets and presentations in all formats, embracing and extending Microsoft’s ubiquitous Office product to the browser. Senior InstaColl representatives including Sabeer Bhatia, and CEO Sumanth Raghavendra were present at this South Bombay event.Most know Sabeer Bhatia as the founder of Hotmail, but what some might not know is that the Bangalore-based InstaColl was also co-founded by him. InstaColl offers solutions that bridge the gap between rich desktop software apps and web-based services.Live Documents allows users to view and edit their documents within any flash-based browser on any operating system from just about anywhere.
Live Documents which was built using RIA technologies like Flash and Flex, uses a Flash-based user interface, offering a richer and more responsive user experience.Sabeer Bhatia said, “Our first step was to take email on to the browser. Now, we have done the same with Office. All aspects of computing will now be done in the sky- it’s called Cloud computing.”Besides accessing Live Documents online, this application is also available as an optional desktop client application that wraps around Office. Basically, Live Documents converts Office apps from static standalone software application to smart clients that are connected to the Internet and allow multiple people to edit a document at the same time, without requiring users to give up their familiar user interfaces. And better still is the fact that Live Documents can be accessed offline, a feature that is not available with any current online Office applications.Thus, as users are offered the choice and flexibility to work on their documents either on the desktop or on the browser and while they are online or offline, any changes made on either side are automatically synchronized to the other side. This ensures that the desktop and Web versions are always in sync sans the need for time-consuming actions like check-in/check-out, upload/download or import/export.”Live Documents is the new productivity suite for the Internet generation providing flexibility lacking in traditional software while retaining that which is important from the past and extending it with unique collaborative capabilities. I believe that Live Documents does for documents what Hotmail did for e-mail,” Sabeer Bhatia further added.Live Documents which has been developed in India over the last two years, also allows users to embed their URL into the application. Thus, blogging is also possible using this application.
As of now, Live Documents has already gone live. The best part is that it is free of cost to all, but is available only on invitation basis from here :
(Click on image for the future of Office)
The commercial version will also be rolled out soon. InstaColl is planning to roll it out enterprise-wise as the biggest advantage for a company using this product would be cost-savings.
InstaColl has no plans to embed ads. “We just want people to enjoy it and tell their friends,” explained Sabeer Bhatia.
Live Documents happens to be just one of the three enterprise products that are being launched. The other two involve real-time collaboration of documents and a security product. Sabeer Bhatia certainly has done India proud, as not only has he come up with Hotmail, ApnaCircle.com, and Arzoo.com, but also works with several software companies besides working on the Nano City project in Haryana.
