We\'re in the process of converting a legacy desktop application into a web enabled equivalent.
However one feature is causing difficulty, editing MS Word documents.
Yes, you can launch editing of MS Office documents from a web browser, using the sharepoint dll available in IE:
Eg
Set EditDocumentButton = CreateObject("SharePoint.OpenDocuments.3")
strDocument = 'http://localhost:8080' + strDocument;
EditDocumentButton.EditDocument(strDocument)
If your server is running java you can use Milton (http://milton.io) to integrate directly into your business app and edit the document in place.