Perhaps, with Word, writing is such a creative process, that I find - especially as a non-native speaker - that it is easier to get distracted by the variety of ways in which I can reformat a paragraph. In fact, I find it more productive to work in WordPress than in Word because of this.
Taken in the context of discussing ‘flow’ this is a rather interesting statement. Perhaps I just don’t understand the idea behind it, but I would think that any discussion of flow involves an immersion in an activity. And if there’s one thing staring right in the face of immersion it’s a HTML textarea box. Just for starters, the textarea hardly ever takes up the bulk of the screen. The rest of the world screams, “I’m only a mouse click away.” (If immersive environments increase flow, then WriteRoom or something like it would be the editor of choice.)
All of this is secondary to the noteworthy aspect of the quote above. If people really start to find lightweight, web-based tools more ‘productive’ than full fledged apps, Microsoft (and a whole host of other people) have to go back to the drawing board.
