New school year approaches and the Collaboration 2.0 players take it to the next level.

Google has announced Google Apps -THE collaborative suite of Gmail, Talk, Calendar and Page Creator with Writely and Spreadsheets underway (read reviews by Techcrunch and ZDnet).

In the meantime, Zoho has launched it’s latest addition to their excellent online office suite. This time is Zoho Projects - online project management which racks up next to Zoho Writer, Spreadsheets and Presentation tools.

And let us not forget 37Signals, the coolest dudes in town, and their unique SME offering for collaboration.

These folks take hungry and angry stabs at Microsoft and they seem to be stepping up their gamel. It is early to tell how much Microsoft will bleed exactly, but let us all consider one significant factor here. Office apps, online, do not only eliminate cost but offer an optional revenue option with advertising. If you’re OK with adsense, targeted at your content and business, in exchange for zero cost - how can this be a bad proposition?