I just read an interesting post on Ajaxian about a new Powerpoint-like slideshow application called TeamSlide. Mike Arrington also wrote about this new app.
As the online Office-killers pile up, I can’t help but wonder what formats these companies are using. If they’re all using independently-developed formats, that’s a bad thing. If they keep them private, that’s an even worse thing.
What they really need to do is put their formats out there in the public domain and allow people to beat on it and re-use it. Not only will it allow people to re-use the work they’ve already done, but it’ll allow to people to provide feedback about how to improve the product and the format. And once a standardized format is reached, adoption is going to grow exponentially. It’ll allow people to choose which application they want to use to view a particular file, which levels the playing field for the little guy. If somebody doesn’t want to spend over a grand for an Office license with PowerPoint, they can choose to use TeamSlide to view the same file.
On a similar note, I know Microsoft is opening up the Office XML format for the next release, I wonder if PowerPoint is included in this. If it is, it would be wise for TeamSlide and other applications like it to work with that format, even it is via an import or transform.
