Read/WriteWeb has a wealth of information about JotSpot, past and present. JotSpot’s product and engineering strengths will fit nicely with various Google offerings, including Docs & Spreadsheets and Groups. Of course, the future implications are what make this move interesting.

Google is making designs for enterprise software, pushing further into Microsoft’s territory. Niall Kennedy presents his theory on how the pieces are falling into place, and it appears compelling.

Thus far, Google’s enterprise strategy has consisted of appliances and hosted services. Appliances, like Google Mini, can be deployed on a company’s private network, indexing internal documents. Hosted services, such as Apps for Your Domain are prime candidates for transition to an appliance as well.

Another component is the software installed on individual computers, Google Desktop and Google Talk being two indispensable applications. A bit of integration, utilizing standard protocols like XMPP, could link everything together. Data could transition seamlessly from the desktop, to the internally deployed appliances, and out to the Google-powered cloud. Wouldn’t that be interesting?

Office 2.0 is currently targeting individual users and small businesses. Enterprises have demanding reliability, scalability, and security requirements that aren’t currently being adequately addressed by office 2.0 applications. I believe that the hosted model seen in many web applications is a primary cause of not meeting these requirements.

As things move forward, I expect it will become more and more common for corporations to adopt a hybrid approach of both hosted services and internally deployed applications. Web protocols such as SOAP and REST over HTTP will serve as the foundation that allows the hybrid approach to be integrated.

The catalyst for this change will come as mobile access to information is demanded by employees. Mobile phones, such a the various BlackBerry models, are important tools for staying connected while away from the office. The sheer variety of mobile devices means that web languages like HTML and JavaScript become the dominant client-side application platform.

The hybrid hosted-internal architecture will allow enterprises to meet their security and reliablilty needs, while allowing workers to access and manage data as they move on and off the corporate network. The standards-based technologies that power this movement will force vendors to abandon proprietary stacks and adopt open interfaces.

(Aside: Is it just me, or is Google second only to Microsoft in poor product naming? I’m not here to criticize brand strategies, but Writely was a fantastic name. Google prefers Google This and Google That, and when those don’t work out, they go and spend $1.65 billion on YouTube, a site in which a good portion of the value lies in the brand. I don’t get it.)

Both Om Malik and Steve Gillmor are blogging the conference. Om claims the office 2.0 idea need refinement, and has to move away from away from traditional notions. Gillmor, as he regularly does, recognizes what is not being said and points in the direction things are moving.

The typical corporation is heavily wrapped up and invested in “process management” and “workflow solutions.” These solutions often have their roots in purchasing decisions made a decade ago, when a corporate network was just that. Data is siloed up in proprietary databases with arcane access restrictions, more often that not a hindrance to modern “workflow.”

Today, the Internet has allowed Google and others to bring communication and collaboration tools directly to the individual. Documents no longer have to be copied, or locked, or hand merged. In a networked world, they can be linked to and edited by multiple people. They can be chat rooms, where changes are discussed before being committed. The documents are the collaboration. They are the workflow.

It’s the difference between centralized and decentralized thinking. Corporations and their enterprise software vendors have a hard time getting beyond rigid, restricted processes. They need to change their mindset, and quickly. Better, more efficient tools are being piped directly to every employee’s desk from beyond the corporate firewall.