The Industry Standard - Microsoft to announce online versions of Office - Comments

Thanks for the correction

Andrew 9 — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:42:31 -0700

Thanks for the correction Eric!

I agree with Nikko. From

Andrew 9 — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:52:06 -0800

I agree with Nikko. From what I have read on the blogosphere and from Microsoft's own Q&A on the Office Live Workspace site this is an online storage play not web-based versions of the popular MS Office Suite. We have a product already at work called "Workspace" and it does exactly what this service does, provide web-based document storage. I think this should be reversed and not considered a "true" prediction.

What is a workspace?
A workspace is an online place where you can save, access, and share documents and files. Use it to group related information for work, school, or personal projects. Sharing is easy – all you need is a person’s e-mail address and you can invite them to your workspace. You decide if they can edit or simply review. You can access your workspace from any computer with an Internet connection and a Web browser.

What's the difference between Office Live Workspace and Office Live Small Business?
Office Live Workspace and Office Live Small Business are complementary services. Office Live Workspace is for all Office users—it’s your online place to save and share documents and files for work, school, or home projects. Office Live Small Business provides everything a small business needs to take their business online, including a professional Web site, domain name, company-branded e-mails, and online tools for managing customers and projects.

I'm a bit surprised and a

nikko tan721487 — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:54:30 -0800

I'm a bit surprised and a bit confused that this prediction is considered to be true.

Microsoft's Office Live is a workspace and not an "online" version of office.
Office Live still forces you to use desktop software to work with your files. Office Live is basically a sharing platform rather than an "online" office suite.

For this prediction, is an online office application considered an online 'version' of office?
From the prediction's premise: Microsoft has seen the wrting on the wall with Google Apps and Google Docs, and Adobe's Buzzword.
It hints that the prediction is that Microsoft will create a competing product along the lines of google docs and adobe buzzword (which office live isn't).

Does this refer to

Bradley Tinney — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:39:14 -0800

Does this refer to http://workspace.officelive.com/ or something more?

Technically Microsoft does

rob shambro — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:00:48 -0800

Technically Microsoft does offer online versions of Microsoft. You can get Office 2007 Free for 60 days. http://us1.trymicrosoftoffice.com/default.aspx?re_ms=oo&culture=en-US

700MB reader/creator kinda heavy, split the tools up. Define office: Word, PPT, Excel, and outlook. Its compatible worldwide and needs no introduction. Regardless if google allows you to create the document, presention, etc..... online, it will need to be saved (printed locally will be fine) but what if it needs to be sent and reopened? Will the end user need to download a reader, will your PRIVATE document be stored on Google's servers and and the link will be sent to the recipient. What if someone forwards it to somebody else? Will it be time released? How would they protect your private data? Don't know about the GQ public but if I put something into a document, its private or needs to be formatted properly, saved, passed around, relined, and then protected only to go through this process 2-3 times before everyone is happy or no mistakes are visible to you and your proof readers. So to be VERY VERY specific, online office is for the creation of the document or Google Apps (God hope they do not infringe on the tools that we all have come to use, ever try to use a new word processing program?) Don't know about you but I do not want the items like, business plans, contracts, wills, heath informations, etc... sitting on a Google server so my destination reader can use an online app. Remeber servers are ran by people, bad enuff every email is already stored somewhere. True online Apps are just another way to invade your privacy.

So MS does have an online app that is free. The reader should always be local and the file sent and downloadable. The file should always be stored locally and no one has time to learn another software program that has the chance of not being universally accepted.

Gmail/Yahoo and others online do circumvent outlook. Outlook is still the browser for non POP email. All are points of failure for privacy invasion. Keep your intellectual property somewhat private.

Moral of the story, Google Apps should be nothing more that creation tools. Readers are freely downloaded (Adobe). Saving is local. Reading is local. I think the prediction is really asking for something that is already here: The worldwide accepted software FREE online. Online Apps by any other source than Microsoft is a hill the readers of the App content and the privacy point of failure is not ready for. So for now just deal with the 60 day online app of Microsoft. If they offer lighter, online creation, locally stored and already accepted online apps just go with it for now until google owns the reader of the document. Lastly the target market of the online app is most likely the the non-savvy, 1-12 times per year user. Hope Microsoft build san online document conversion tool for Google Apps so that the reader can view it in his/her normal environment, Not likely. What about changes and additions from the reader in a Fortune 1000 company. Ask the IT guys about that one. Just a thought.

Microsoft should timeshare

rob shambro — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 03:07:02 -0800

Microsoft should timeshare office. Lite versions. Office is expensive and the lite apps or the readers are for those who use the tools less than 10 days out of the year, a big population. Create a version of Office that comes free with every computer. If you use it more than X times per year, it stops working or needs to be bought. Google FullBlown Apps, given free to companies would win in about 7 years. Office is expensive.

Microsoft Office is more about the receiver than the creator. Have you ever tried to submit a resume in WordPrefect? hahahaha. Word (the driving force) is ubiquitous to ink and paper. Any online tools, unless microsoft allows Google to distribute not a reader but an editor , will be a waste of time for Google. Adobe reader........ Why does this comapny exist? I wonder why Word cannot or does not create WLD (Word Locked Down) with a reader thats free. A document is created for business purposes (.com, .net, .org, .gov) EMAIL is the online version of Word. Sorry but that's a loosing battle. Google should creat a paid search engine for those of us that want a search engine not a pay per click biased site. The real thing. Metadata is created by the crawler, the url, the authenticiy, the correlation to linked site.....i have the algorythum. SIMPLE SIMPLE SIMPLE

Microsoft to announce online versions of Office

The Standard — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:27:16 -0800

We have reversed our original ruling on this - this did not occur. Players have been awarded accordingly. -- The Industry Standard

Microsoft has seen the wrting on the wall with Google Apps and Google Docs, and Adobe's Buzzword.

This is a prediction that Microsoft will announce online versions of Office at the Mix Conference later this week.