Told ya so. Told ya so. Told ya Adobe was gonna buy that free Buzzword online word processing widgetry so it can finally get into the Office business.

Adobe, which invented desktop publishing and saved one of Apple's nine lives, denies it's going up against Microsoft - and, if we're decoding the mutter from inside Adobe right, they're not just being cute - they think they're competing against Google's online software Docs - which is risky enough considering Google and its Toolbar are supposed to bring Adobe about $60 million-$80 million in Adobe Reader revenues every quarter.

Eventually of course Adobe will also be competing against the online Office suite that Microsoft, another big Adobe revenue source, will be putting out - once it stops sitting on its hands - a suite rumored to be a collaborative version of Microsoft's low-end Works kit.

(Have we mentioned how highly overrated collaboration is? If it really takes hold, it's safe to assume we can look forward to a quantifiable dip in productivity.)

Anyway, Buzzword offers a pretty WYSIWYG preview of what will print out in PDF, prettier than the other online offerings. Its other functionality is said by people who have used it to be on a par with Works, offering the kind of graphical wizardry one might expect from Adobe. It's got layout skills - the fonts, the bullets, the indents, the chapter heading - and it's reportedly easy to use.

Adobe announced Monday that it's buying Buzzword and its creator Virtual Ubiquity on undisclosed terms - although it did disclose that the two-year-old Massachusetts start-up has been an Adobe investment since last year when Adobe started fueling start-ups using its technology.

So it's no accident then that Buzzword is based on Adobe's Flash platform, was built with Adobe's Flex software, and includes prototype support for Adobe's AIR runtime so it can run offline as well as by dragging and dropping.

AIR won't go gold until Q1 and is supposed to be the next major Adobe platform after Flash and Acrobat. Applications from Salesforce.com, SAP, eBay, Disney and Business Objects are being developed on it, positioning Adobe as a serious Web 2.0 player.

Adobe says it's going to refine Buzzword, which is still of course in beta, into its ideal rich Internet application and solve the problem of how people collaborate on documents. It already claims Buzzword has solved the version control chaos. It wants the thing to easily create PDF files online and on the desktop and says it will be integrated with Adobe Document Center to help people retain control of documents and track their use. It will also be integrated with Acrobat Connect for Web conferencing.

The 11 guys writing Buzzword turn out to include a handful of the guys who wrote the old Lotus Manuscript, the product after 1-2-3. Needless to say it was not another 1-2-3.

The acquisition of what is believed to have been code named "Trampoline" by Adobe should close by the end of November. The team will then move to Adobe's offices in Newton, Massachusetts.

It looks like Adobe will offer a fancier version of the free Buzzword to corporates as a paid service à la Google. Meanwhile Adobe is continuing Buzzword's beta feedback program.

Separately Adobe added a free new 1GB file-sharing service. The beta "Share" service, at least that's its code name, is supposed to make it easier for people to share, publish and organize online documents that Adobe stores. It said the beta includes a set of REST APIs so developers can create mash-ups that include storing and accessing their files as well as creating thumbnails and Flash-based previews of documents.

It also brought out its branded beta Media Player for Flash files, aka Astro. The 1.0 version, competitive with RealNetworks and Microsoft - and also built on AIR - isn't due until the first half of next year sometime. Adobe has already signed CBS, PBS and Yahoo to distribute their video programming through the thing.

Meanwhile, while all this was happening, that other online Office wannabe, Zoho, announced Zoho DB, describing it as "data analytics for the rest of us." It is supposed to do full-fledged SQL queries and be able to understand SQL queries from Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, Sybase, MySQL, Postgres, Informix and ANSI SQL. To date, Zoho has launches 16 applications.