The significance of the Writely acquisitiion

More on Google’s acquisition of Writely, the web-based processing tool, about which I wrote briefly the other day. I’ve just come on an interesting (if slightly hyperbolic) essay describing the acquisition as Microsoft’s “Pearl Harbour”! I think that’s overblown, but it’s interesting to remember that Bill Gates chose Pearl Harbour Day way back in 1993 to alert his company to the threat posed by the Internet and Netscape.