Online office suites are gaining some serious steam, and Zoho Office (along with Google Docs) remains one of the innovators in the market. Today, Zoho has released an update to Zoho Writer, their online word processing application.

The biggest highlight of the update is the added support for Microsoft's OOXML file format, mercifully titled DocX. In case you didn't know, whenever you save a Word document, PowerPoint file, Excel spreadsheet, etc...in Office 2007 (or 2008 on a Mac), the default format is DocX.

Zoho Writer now allows you to export your documents as a DocX file – though it looks like importing a DocX file is still a short time away.

Other notable feature updates include:

• Thesaurus (available in ten languages)
• Groups: Share documents with multiple people without having to enter in multiple email addresses each time you share a document.
• Enhanced support for endnotes, footnotes, headers, and footers.

It looks like the line between online word processing and desktop word processing just got a little thinner. How about you, constant reader? Have you made the leap to online word processing? Sound off below.

[via TechCrunch]

As the shift towards online applications grows strong, so do the conferences and events that promote working online.

The Office 2.0 conference is just around the corner in San Francisco, September 5-7th 2007. The event is aimed at the discovery of future online productivity and collaboration efforts brings together leaders and visionaries in the field to discuss innovative online services, and ways to get things done both at home, and in the office. Speaker's sessions include: The Future of work, mobile productivity, death of the app., and GTD with Office 2.0.

A very cool part of the event is that conference attendees will get an Apple iPhone, or PS3 running on Firefox with Linux, to play with and connect during the event. The iPhone experiment will allow conference go ers a way to easily check out the conference schedule, map the area, utilize the facilities WiFi and to lookup conference speakers and biographies. Of course the device is built in to the $1695 registration fee, and users are responsible for activating the iPhone with an AT&T plan. Nonetheless a very intuitive idea from conference organizers.

There is also word that Google could be announcing Google Presentation, and Google Wiki at this event.

Octopz is an online collaboration tool that launched at Web 2.0 last week. The tool allows up to 5 people to get together online and collaborate on projects.

Designed particularly with creative professionals in mind, Octopz allows users to mark-up photos and video within their system without downloading any software. For instance if you were decorating an apartment for someone across the country, or across the world for that matter you could upload a video or photos of what you have completed so far and your client could access it and write literally on your video changes they would like to have made.

The tool is really ideal for people like graphic designers and video producers who may be working on something for someone far away. Allowing users to mark-up the video, graphics, or photos makes it easy to see exactly what changes your client wants to be made without any confusion.

The tool also has a built-in text messaging, VoIP and webcam support so everyone working on a project can get together for in what ever way is best for them. You can try it out for free for 14 days. After that Octopus runs $99/mo which is a pretty hefty price but could be worth it if you collaborate often with people far away.