Here is a great piece by Peter Rip that describes Writely’s back story. 

I read it Friday.  Very informative.  Big dose of reality.  Quality stuff.  More Web 2.0 meets real business…I gotta get those posts out the door…

On that note, I just got a comment from Narendra (scroll down) of 30Boxes.com.  Seems like team at 30Boxes is living a similar story to the folks at Writely, not unlike we are living a similar story to the folks at 37Signals.