Some time ago, a co-worker told how much he thought Outlook Web Access (the Exchange 2003 version) to be a very nice web application.

I can agree with him, at least to the extent that it performs quite well to mimic the Outlook 2003 interface, at least if you use Internet Explorer. It does work on Firefox, but with more limitations – dare I say it: – of course. But, just as Outlook 2003, it does nothing new when it comes to the usability of the application itself: a front end to the Exchange server.

Today I stumbled into this Ajax based web calendar demo (project home page here.) Separate categories of calendar items, and separate user calendars? Looks like the same object IMHO. Transparently combining multiple calendars? By design. Don’t try this with Outlook/Exchange, you just can’t (maybe with Evolution/Exchange, not sure though.) Drag and drop support in a web app? Okay, now I’m really impressed.

It is this kind of innovation one does not see from Microsoft. They re-invent the weel, refresh user interfaces, but they don’t really renew the usage experience you get from their applications.

Oh, as I said, you need Firefox to check out that demo, if you used Internet Explorer, you probably already noticed why :-).