
Enter Zenter: "We want to be the Gmail of PowerPoint." - danielha
http://blogs.business2.com/beta/2007/03/in_three_weeks_.html
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aristus
This is a really cool idea, but I wonder about the danger of falling into the
"X of Y" or "A meets B" style of describing software.

"X of Y" is how Hollywood describes new scripts. The danger is that this is
also how Hollywood _comes up with_ new scripts. Have we gone whole hog and
transformed into a fashion industry? Are we optimizing for quick wins, sequels
of existing software, at the expense of real innovation?

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pg
We encourage startups to explain themselves this way to investors and
reporters, but not necessarily to think of the project in these terms
themselves. Though the Zenters were pretty clever about their X of Y: they
chose Gmail precisely because it was not merely web-based mail, but redefined
what a mail program could be.

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zach
Yeah, but from the user's point of view, when I hear that I think I'm going to
be zipping presentations to people instead of email, and looking at an inbox
of presentations people have sent me. That can't be right, can it?

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zaidf
"Gmail of Powerpoint"? Am I the only one who is struggling to make sense of
what that means?

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omarish
Gmail did a pretty good job redoing a certain technology, web based email, in
this case. Powerpoint is a technology that needs reworking.

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far33d
remember pb's (to distinguish him from pg) definition of a good product: the
suffix "that actually works".

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inklesspen
Isn't Google building the Gmail of PowerPoint? I've heard rumblings of "Google
Present" for some time now. Let's hope these guys don't go the way of Kiko;
they sound like they have some pretty good ideas.

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danielha
A Google Presently is in the works. I'm don't know the differences in approach
compared with Zenter, but we should find out more as Google formally announces
Presently and Zenter opens up a bit more to the public.

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nickb
If the rumors are true, they'll have to worry about Google...

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ecuzzillo
Yeah, I can totally see this being smooshed by Google like Kiko was. PG said
that Google was only good at stuff that worked for hackers, but I bet it could
parlay its Gmail userbase into a Zenter-killing web-based Powerpoint, even
though hackers don't generally do that much powerpoint.

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zach
See, it's like "pre-zenter." Took me a while to get that.

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johnm
Might be nice if it worked under Safari rather than just hanging. :-(

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belhassen
online sample: <http://www.zenter.com/ed/view.html?id=226>

