Web 2.0 Asia

Techcrunch reported a Korea/US-based web office provier ThinkFree looks to be closing its US operation. TC even called Thinkfree "being on death watch", about to go into its deadpool soon.

But I don't think Thinkfree is going down anytime soon. Here's why:

1. The company simply has the best online office tool out there. Read the comments on the TC article, and most people seem to agree that in terms of the sheer product quality, Thinkfree is leading the pack. Some criticize the fact that Thinkfree is based on a rather arcaine Java applet technologies, but customers don't care if it's Ajax or Applet - as long as the service delivers.

2. Thinkfree in terms of customer adoption, but we're only talking about the so-called "B2C" market here, i.e. individual web users. If the "B2B" market is included as well, we'd be talking about a very different picture. For example, Naver (Korea's #1 portal) will soon launch "Naver office", a re-branded service of Thinkfree Online. Once Naver Office goes up (now it's in closed beta), Thinkfree will easily add millions to its user base. I don't know how the revenue structure has been set up between Thinkfree and Naver, but Naver Office will certainly be a boon to Thinkfree.


3. The owner of Thinkfree, Haansoft, is an engineering powerhouse and has extensive experience with (offline) office applications. They know what they are doing with Thinkfree.

Sean Cho of Thinkfree commented on the TC article, basically saying they are shifting to focus more on corporate customers, both in the US and in Korea. I'm not seeing glittering signs Thinkfree is going into deadpool, at least for now.