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No Huge Threat Yet

In some ways these suites begin to fulfill the promise of the Web, but Office, highly polished over the years, still has a clear lead in overall features and suite integration. In the online suites, you won't find the tight integration and much of the advanced functionality present in Microsoft's current collection, let alone the upcoming Office 2007. In particular, the presentation apps don't come close to the feature set you'll find in PowerPoint.

Also, much of the "suite" aspect consists only of your using the same log-in and (save for Zoho) storing all your documents in one place, without a lot in the way of other tie-ins between the apps. For example, if you cut and paste part of an Excel spreadsheet into a Word document, you'll get a converted Word table that preserves the rows, columns, and shading. The online options, in contrast, will paste the content in roughly the same layout but won't put it in a table.

Though the online apps are currently lacking in comparison with Office, they're developing fast. AjaxLaunch.com has its own suite in the works, with a Firefox-only word processor available now and other apps to come. And one advantage of a fully online app is that you don't need to download (or pay for) updates to obtain newly added features or fixes--next time you log in, they're already there.