I don’t know that these tools in particular are the future, but networked applications and online storage certainly are. I have been looking for a simple solution for the storage of my work files online through a folder on my computer so that I can easily access and edit them from home. I never use my poor flash drive. If I need to transport something, I email it. This leaves the problem of many copies floating around. I have recently started using dropbox, and I think that it will be the solution I have been looking for as far as online storage. Online webapps can be accessed from anywhere. Google Docs is even accessible offline now, so one doesn’t even have to have an internet connection to edit their documents. People have wanted a better solution for carrying and editting files on the go for a long time, and it is finally becoming much more easy.
The nature of the way people can collaborate and share with these applications is also very impressive. Being able to operate a slide show, make comments on shared documents or view the history of changes on a document is such a relief after the days of mailing multiple copies back and forth amongst a group or clunky, expensive software for making remote presentations!
Google Docs is usually my office webapp of choice, but only because I already had a Google account and store a lot of files with them. I found ZoHo to have a lot more features and a much better interface, but it’s just one more place to go, and when I’m already using GMail, GReader, GCalendar, GSearch, and Picasa (Google’s photo sharing and storage site), why not just go for broke and use their office suite, too.
