Microsoft took another step Monday toward its goal of being a “Software plus Services” company, as it opened its beta version of a Web-extended Office suite. First previewed in the fall, Office Live Workspace beta is being made available free as a Web-based extension of the dominant Office productivity suite. It had previously been available as a private beta, and the final release is expected later this year. The software giant said this version will allow people to “access their documents online and share their work with others.”
Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division, said the “rich client experience” of Office combined with the online service provides “a seamless computing experience for our 500 million Office users worldwide.”
Real-Time Sharing
Up to a thousand Office documents can be stored online and shared in Office Live Workspace. Documents can be viewed and commented on in the browser, simple Web lists and Web notes can be created, and, when integrated with Microsoft SharedView, documents can be shared in real time.
The service also offers new features, including an activity panel, direct links, and multifile uploads, which the company said came from feedback in early testing.
The activity panel has an at-a-glance view of all activity in a work space, e-mail notifications about changes, a work-space item can be bookmarked, and multiple files can be uploaded simultaneously by dragging and dropping.
Michael Silver, an analyst with industry research firm Gartner, pointed out that Office Live Workspace does not provide the full Office capabilities online, but is an “add-on for collaboration and small business management” to provide storage, version control and other online features. It is not, he said, what Google Docs is.
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