The search giant's online word processor will compete with Microsoft's Office Live strategy, and a host of other players jostling for a slice of this billion-dollar market

Five months after being bought by Google, the Writely online word-processing application is now open for anyone who wants to sign up and use it.

Writely has been closed to all but its existing members since its acquisition by search giant Google back in March. But last Thursday, Google allowed anyone to join up and make use of the hosted word-processing application.

Writely is a hosted word-processing package that allows users to edit and publish documents online. The package was created by Silicon Valley software-development company Upstartle, which was started by software engineers Sam Schillace, Steve Newman and Claudia Carpenter.

The move follows speculation about whether Google intends to challenge Microsoft's Office productivity suite. Last October, Google's partnership with Sun set off intense speculation that the companies would collaborate around OpenOffice.org to create a hosted-applications suite. But the two companies merely announced that they would work together on OpenOffice, Java, OpenSolaris, and Google's Toolbar.

Full article: ZDNet UK