On October 1, Adobe joined Google, IBM, Sun, Ajax13, ThinkFree, TransMedia, and Zoho, piling up on the rivals offering alternative solutions to Microsoft's Office system. Adobe Systems Incorporated announced that it has acquired Virtual Ubiquity, a start-up developing Buzzword, a web-based, collaborative word processor, similar to Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Adobe's move comes to confirm earlier speculations that the company was planning to offer a rival product to the Office productivity suite, and is an understandable initiative focused on a product built with Adobe Flex technology and designed to run in the Adobe Flash Player.

But unlike other companies contributing to the online word processor pile of products set up to dislodge Microsoft from its dominance with Office on the productivity solutions market, Adobe actually has a real fighting chance. This is because the company is not merely planning to offer a web-based online word processor. Adobe is in fact building an entire platform that will then rival with office on equal terms. Adobe promised a "vibrant ecosystem", in translation an online productivity platform, that will be developed with the addition of Rich Internet Applications.

"Adobe was an obvious choice - not only because we built Buzzword on their great Flash platform, but because Buzzword fits so well into the Adobe heritage, which is all about great design and documents that matter. We think we can truly make a difference with Adobe, and help them in a variety of ways. Adobe has some exciting plans for the future, and Buzzword is poised to play an important role in their increasing presence in the area of web applications and collaboration", revealed a representative of Virtual Ubiquity.

Adobe dodged the scenario where it is placed as a Microsoft rival, and emphasized the collaborative aspect of Buzzword, revealing plans to integrate the product with such services and applications as Create Adobe PDF Online, Adobe Document Center, Adobe Acrobat Connect and Share, a a free web-based document sharing, publishing and organizing solution. However, Adobe is by no means focused exclusively online. And the company has three resources that it can leverage against Microsoft: the .PDF standard, already an established file format, preferred by far to Office 2007's Open XML; the ubiquity of the Flash technology and Adobe AIR.

Buzzword and Office will end up fighting over the same territory, on the desktop, because Adobe will not offer only the online version but also a solution for the desktop, allowing users to work offline. "Because it was built with Adobe Flex software and runs in the Adobe Flash Player, Buzzword enables greater document quality, outstanding typography, page layout controls, and robust support for integrated graphics, regardless of the browser or device. The application also will run on Adobe AIR, offering users a hybrid online/offline experience and the ability to work with both hosted and local documents," reads an excerpt of the Adobe press release on Buzzword.