There are countless sites offering online office suites. Google Docs, and Zoho are few good ones to mention, but none of them have as many features as the commercially available Microsoft Office. However, the only negative aspect of Microsoft Office is that you cannot conveniently share the documents with your contacts over the internet. The only available option is to email your documents or store it in some media and carry it. In an effort to fill this gap, Microsoft has announced a new service called “Microsoft Office Live Workspace“.
It’s an online companion to Microsoft Office. Office users can use the new service to store their documents and share it. A user can control who can view, comment, and edit his documents. Unlike online office suites, Microsoft Office Live Workspace won’t let users edit the document through his browser; instead he will have to use Microsoft Office software to edit.
Microsoft has flawlessly integrated this new service with Microsoft Office. Users will be able to open, save or view the document from Word, Excel or PowerPoint. Microsoft Outlook users can synchronize contacts, tasks and event list.
As we all know, Microsoft Office is commercially available software. Users will have to buy Microsoft Office inorder to use Office Live Workspace. It’s pretty obvious that they won’t let you edit the document through your browser. The service is yet to be released into public beta, so you won’t be able to try it out.
In my opinion, it would have been better if they could have added an option to edit the documents through the browse. The service is anyhow intended to be used by Genuine Office users, so what’s the point in cutting down features? If they could work out some method to authenticate if the person who has signed up for the service is a genuine user, they can easily add this new option. Or maybe, they can even show some ads and allow users to edit documents from their browser. This way, they can earn revenues as well keep users happy. What do you think?
Via: CyberNet
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