Well now, hold the line, since writing my last post Writely finally opened for registrations again, NeoOffice posted Beta 2 and I also decided to give Mariner Write a go.

So then, first impressions? Well first of all NeoOffice Beta 2 is a big jump up. Performance is much better and the whole thing looks a lot slicker while retaining the great OpenOffice functionality I know and love. This is such an improvement that I am not sure I need to use something lighter like AbiWord.

Writely is something I have been waiting a long time to use as I only heard of it after the Google buyout when they closed registrations. So does it live up to such long held expectations? Well the short answer is yes in that I am not disappointed by it in the least at the moment. Naturally as a web-based word processor it has its strengths and limitations. I certainly like being able to snatch a moment at work to write something up and not have the hassle of working with a USB drive or anything similar. I haven’t tried the ODT export yet but if it works as advertised then the integration with OpenOffice is going to be a big win for me as it will allow me to mix the applications while keeping the data consistent.

So far Write just isn’t getting a look in although I did download the Mariner MacJournal software at the same time and that looks quite good.