Stories about: ThinkFree

Web-based office suites are coming into their own at last. For quite a while, Web-based suites -- which offered word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and other tools associated with desktop office suites -- were extolled not because they did these things well, but because they could do them at all. But the three major competitors, Google Docs, ThinkFree, and Zoho, have all made major improvements in recent months. They're becoming both broader, with more applications, and deeper, with more features and functionality in existing apps.

There are many popular, low-cost ways to toss text onto the Web, from blogs and Google Docs to social networking sites. Likewise, you can find a lot of sites where you can post photos and videos. But until recently, less attention has been paid to online databases -- and that's a pity, because lots of people besides database geeks would benefit from a bit more structure to their data.