A thought occurred to me the other day. Who really, in their job, needs a word processor? Most of my users just use it to make documents and shove them on a file share to be forgotten. These docs almost always contain information that, really, would be better stored in either an online document system or via email. Think of it this way: You wake up in an alternate universe. This universe is just like ours except for one tiny difference: The word processor, for whatever reason, was never invented. Instead, for formal documents they use a….typewriter. Really. Or a typesetter for big stuff. Anyway, you go to work and look at your alternate universe desk. Now ask yourself, would that desk contain a typewriter?
I’ll bet your answer would be no (nostalgia “old school!” answers don’t count). More than likely you would use email or use an online knowledge base or document system. What got me thinking about this was Google Wave and the thought of integrating everything into a hybrid, web based communication system. Foget document types, concentrate more on document content. You enter it, drop it into an search indexed public or private folder. Want to email it, click email and email headers appear. Sending it internal, it just links to the document in the folder instead of generating 5000000000 copies of it, since you, of course, hit reply-to-all.
OK, ramble over 
