Microsoft recently announced that they will be launching a Google Docs type app called Office Web. Semi-private testing of Office Web has started today and the good news is that the online suite of apps will be free.
As there are many other services such as the ones from Google, Apple and Adobe that are already free or cheap, it didn’t give MS much of a choice really. Included apps in Office Web are Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote which does make quite a nice suite of free apps and very handy for those not wanting to carry documents around with them.
Hopefully the apps will score well with the few thousand who are initially beta testing the service. We will let you know when more details emerge.
• Work anywhere with Office Web applications—the lightweight, Web browser versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote-that provide access to documents from anywhere and preserve the look and feel of a document regardless of device.
• Better Collaborate with co-authoring in Word, PowerPoint and OneNote, and advanced email management and calendaring capabilities in Outlook, including the option to “ignore” unwanted threads.
• Bring ideas to life with video and picture editing, broadcast capability in PowerPoint, easy document preparation through the new Microsoft Office Backstage view, and new Sparklines in Excel to visualize data and spot trends more quickly
Via: Giz
