Redmond, Washington — After hundreds of thousands of testers took the Technical Preview development milestone out for a spin, the Redmond Vole had finally entered in the the browser-based productivity race, on Monday making the long-awaited Office Web apps live on SkyDrive and are available for users residing in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Ireland. And the coolest thing about this office suite in the cloud is that it is all free.
Currently the feature is accessible for all users in the US, the UK, Canada and Ireland on office.live.com, where users can view, edit, and share Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote documents from the browser.
Although the Office Web Apps is configured for most of the Web browsers, but Google Chrome appears to be missing from the list. And Office Web Apps is available and designed for Windows PCs, Macs, and Linux-based machines.
Needless to say, Microsoft has just began introducing an important side of Office 2010 to the world, and is bound to uncover even more in the coming week, when the successor of Office 2007 reaches the General Availability milestone on June 15th, Jason Moore, principal lead program manager, Windows Live SkyDrive, notes.
“If you reside in the US, UK, Canada, or Ireland, you can head over to Office.live.com today to start viewing and editing Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote documents right from your web browser — and share them with your friends,” Moore added. “If you do not live in one of those regions, you can still get access. You might not get the Web Apps in your favorite language yet, as we are still rolling out updates to different regions. Note that people you share documents with may also need to visit the link above before they can access the documents you share with them.”
All that is required to access Office Web Apps is a Windows Live ID. With that in hand, just move directly for office.live.com to be able to use online cloud-based versions of Office suite. All of which are delivered via SkyDrive, with each user assigned 25GB of storage space for files.
The latest attributes include the capability to upload documents. If you have Silverlight, you can do batch uploading. Recently edited documents, meanwhile, will pop up in a “Recent documents” section so they can be easily accessed. Office Web Apps enables you to both view and create files. You can upload and edit a file created offline, or can create a brand new file. Co-authoring Excel or OneNote documents is now made easier, with multiple people able to work on a document at the same time.
“We will have more to give out next week when Office 2010 is released to consumers, including how Office 2010+SkyDrive+Office Web Apps give you the best productivity experience across the PC, phone, and browser,” Moore said in a blog post.
Those users who are content using Google Docs and the other browser-based office app suites probably would not be affected by Microsoft’s effort. But for everyone else, it is a good addition to the lineup. And moreover it is free, so there is really no need to complain if you do not like the product.