Redmond, Washington — When Office 365 was released just a couple weeks ago, one of most distinct feature that it was lacking in comparison to its arch rival Google Docs apps was that there was no way to collaborate in real-time on Word documents using the Word Web App. Well, from now onwards that is no longer an issue — As software giant Microsoft today announced the availability of co-authoring in its Word web application.
Google Docs had a fairly significant lead on Microsoft’s Office Web Apps when they were finally rolled out in 2010. Since then, Docs has been transformed into a full-featured productivity suite, complete with a web-based document previewer, media player components, and rich sharing options. Most importantly, another feature Docs offers is collaborative editing, which arrived shortly after Google’s purchase of Etherpad.
Interestingly, that is why people are surprised that Google Docs has such a following! However, that aside, what Microsoft has put together seems to be well thought out and usable, though very late. The software giant has, however, steadily been closing the functionality gap.
Of late, the Inside Windows Live blog announced the arrival of realtime collaboration in the Word Web App. Two components of the Office Web suite — Excel and OneNote — already offered this functionality, and it was one of the Office Web Apps team’s most requested features.
We will begin with their own words to describe exactly how working with other people inside of an online Word document will now function:
Our unique methodology to co-authoring in the Word Web App on SkyDrive reflects our team’s deep understanding of how our customers prefer to collaborate and get things done, based on what you have told us and how we have observed the use of Office. To help us design co-authoring, we read a lot of your comments, and watched, asked, and listened to how customers said they wanted to work together when working on Office documents. We discovered that expectations change based on the type of document and style of collaboration in play.
Therefore, when you are co-authoring, you always have a realtime perspective into who is making changes and where these changes are occurring. As soon as you begin typing, the identical section of the document is locked and others are notified, placing you in control and freeing others from distraction. Contributors can hit “save” at any time to see an updated view of all changes.
So, if you are working on a document at the same time as someone else, Word will inform you that changes are being made and lock the specific section of the document he or she is modifying. Once the changes are ready for display on your screen, a quick save refreshes the document’s contents. At last, no more emailing co-workers to let them know you have made changes to your SkyDrive-stored documents!
Fortunately, instead of issuing this in a staggered, slow format, the company is making it available now: “all of this works today across the Word Web App on SkyDrive, Word 2010, and Word for Mac 2011, so you can work together and be more productive across the browser, the PC, or the Mac.”
Again, this feature is late, but Microsoft seems to be making amends for its tardiness. Besides, as cool as the new feature itself might be, it is just as cool that two ‘Softies’ made use of it to author the very post announcing it: one wrote while the other inserted screen captures, with SkyDrive and Word taking care of the amalgamation.
More information at Inside Windows Live and the Office Web Apps blog. And to see the multi-author magic in action, check out the video below:
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