The presentation software used by millions of project managers and consultants, Microsoft’s PowerPoint, will have a competitor from Google called “Presently” as the company builds yet another piece of the office suite everyone expects will challenge Office, once it actually has enough features.

When O’Reilly talked about Web 2.0 and perpetual beta he was tryng to say (I think) that the classic software release cycle is becoming too slow and self-focused for modern companies and that companies should never stop to enhance their applications and services with help from the community.

Some mild rumors have been surfacing about the potential for Google purchasing online productivity suite provider ThinkFree, a South Korean company that offers ThinkFree Online with Microsoft Office file format compatibility and other features.

By combining the Writely online word processor and the Spreadsheets service into a single sign-on product, Google has moved ever closer to fulfilling the expectation they will someday place an online competitor to Microsoft Office online.

Microsoft may set up an online version of its low-end Works productivity suite to compete with offerings from Google and a number of startup companies.

The Google Account implementation is now live at Writely.com.

Google has taken the invite system off Writely. Now, you can sign up for Google’s web-based word processor without any sort of wait (or hunting for a buddy already in the system).

Google nearly sneaked this one in us. Late Thursday, Google quietly made Writely, the online word processor the company acquired in March, available to the online populace again. As 4PM EDT Friday, there’s still no mention of at the Press Center.

June 6th will see the limited beta preview of Google’s online spreadsheet program made available from the company’s Google Labs development section.

The evolution of the World Wide Web over the last five years has been nothing short of astounding.

Fortune has a really cool series called “How I Work.” They interviewed an array of business leaders and celebrities about the tools and techniques they use to manage their day.

What if there were an alternative for Microsoft Word that would install and open in 6 seconds, read and write Microsoft Word .doc files and run on Macintosh, Microsoft Windows or Linux computers? asks Michael Robertson.

Thanks to Phillip Lenssen, I have a Writely account to play with. Seems pretty cool actually.

Jen Mazzon today confirmed on the Google Blog rumors of Google acquiring the online word processing service Writely.com.

From all quarters you can hear the pronouncements of the death of Microsoft Office.