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“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers’. This is a famous misquote attributed to Thomas J. Watson Sr., then-president of IBM, in an apparent misjudgment of the PC market’s potential. As the story goes, under Watson’s leadership, IBM — which invented the PC — didn’t have a vision as to how big the market could become and let others, especially Microsoft, get the lion’s share of the value creation”.

“Ray Conley, of Palo Alto Investors, made a good case (…) that the statement could indeed be true if you think of the computer in the cloud sense. Could five computer “clouds” really allow us to do everything we want?

Read Baris Karadogan’s column on GigaOM.

Speaking of cloud computing, last month I uploaded “Free Web 2.0 Meeting Tools: Vyew, Yugma, Dimdim, Zoho“, which instantly became one of the most visited posts of this blog. The following is a list of online collaboration and/or sharing tools which involve web based services and, generally speaking, broadband access.

Note that this is still a draft. I will be making some updates later tonight. In the meantime, please feel free to leave your comments on any needed improvements to this post.

Basecamp: “Tools tailored to improve the communication between people working together on a project (…) [allows] you and your colleagues to easily track and organize all aspects of a project — or team effort — in one place”.

• Site: http://www.basecamphq.com/
• Pricing: http://www.basecamphq.com/signup
• Free: limited account (e.g. 1 project) and 1 month trial for any other plans
• Software installation:

Central Desktop: “Provides simple project collaboration tools for business teams. Our tools help your business organize and share information efficiently, communicate with others and collaborate on projects”.

• Site: http://www.centraldesktop.com/
• Pricing: http://www.centraldesktop.com/pricing
• Free: limited account (e.g. 2 workspaces)
• Software installation:

Google Docs: “Import your existing documents, spreadsheets and presentations, or create new ones from scratch. Access and edit from anywhere. All you need is a Web browser. Your documents are stored securely online. Share changes in real time. Invite people to your documents and make changes together, at the same time”.

• Site: http://docs.google.com/
• Pricing:
• Free:
• Software installation:

Glide Next: “The Glide OS — part of the burgeoning ‘Software as a Service’ movement — resides ‘in the cloud’, enabling you to access and edit your digital content from anywhere you can get a connection — your computers at home or work, your handset, or even ultramobile PCs and PDAs. Glide Sync lets you synchronize all of your files and information on your computer; it works in conjunction with a ‘compatibility engine’ that automatically transcodes different media types, optimizing them for delivery depending on the platform and how much bandwidth you have’.

• Site: http://www.glidenext.com/
• Pricing: https://account.glidesociety.com/register/default.aspx
• Free: limited account (e.g. 2GB storage)
• Software installation: no, browser only

MediaMaster: “Stream your music [from the network] to any web browser”

• Site: http://www.mediamaster.com/
• Pricing:
• Free:
• Software installation: no, browser only

ThinkFree Office: “Designed to look, feel, and behaves like Microsoft Office, eliminating the learning curve. Because ThinkFree application use the same formats as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, you can rest assured that your documents will look the same in ThinkFree as they do in Microsoft Office-no matter what editing features you are using”.

• Site: http://www.thinkfree.com/
• Pricing:
• Free:
• Software installation:

Review Basics: “ReviewBasics takes a familiar, paper-based content review process and brings it online. Easy-to-use wizards walk the author through uploading their content to a centralized, secure website. Once content is uploaded, authors invite reviewers to start the review process”.

• Site: http://www.reviewbasics.com/
• Pricing: http://www.reviewbasics.com/Pricing.aspx
• Free: Beta version
• Software installation: no, browser only

Scribid: The ‘YouTube’ for documents

• Site: http://www.scribd.com/
• Pricing:
• Free:
• Software installation: no, browser only

Slideshare: The ‘YouTube’ for presentations

• Site: http://www.slideshare.net/
• Pricing:
• Free:
• Software installation: no, browser only

SoonR: “SoonR keeps you securely connected to your computer files so you’re free to go mobile”

• Site: http://www.soonr.com/
• Pricing:
• Free:
• Software installation: yes, requires PC client download

Orb: Stream your media from your PC

• Site: http://www.orb.com/
• Pricing:
• Free:
• Software installation: yes, requires PC client download

Zoho Office: “Suite of web services [that] can be accessed with just a browser & an Internet connection. The best part is you don’t require to install any software on your computer”.

• Site: http://www.zoho.com/
• Pricing:
• Free:
• Software installation:

WebEx’s WebOffice: “Makes working together easier. You can share documents, calendars, information, and conduct live meetings from the office or the road”.

• Site: http://www.weboffice.com/
• Pricing: http://www.weboffice.com/EN/Pricing/
• Free: 30 day free trial
• Software installation:

  J. de Francisco Chicago, IL. 27 November 07

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“The Top 10″ at the time of uploading this article: [1] 3M’s Innovation Recipe. [2] The Top 10 Best R&D Companies In The World. [3] HP’s Innovation Recipe: “IPO”, The Innovation Program Office. [4] Design Concepts: Future Car. [5] “Visual Futurist: The Art & Life Of Syd Mead”. [6] Lead User Innovation At 3M. [7] Mobile Phone Concepts: Egy Studio. [8] Transforming Your Old Laptop Into An “Internet Communicator” (2). [9] Project Ergofuturo: ErgoTrans (1991 Product Concept). [10] Welcome to 2015.