Microsoft’s ongoing battle with Google enters a new phase this week as the software colossus launches the latest edition of its perennial Office suite.
Office 2010 represents Microsoft’s overdue response to Google’s online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation apps.
Google’s “software as a service” suite dealt a body blow to Microsoft because it was everything that Office wasn’t. The apps lived on Google’s servers rather than sitting on a PC’s hard drive. They allowed users to share and edit documents at the same time. They could be used through any web browser on even the most basic Windows, Mac or Linux system. And they were completely free.
With Office 2010, Microsoft climbs off the canvas and shows it can give as good as it gets. Central to the revamped software suite is Office Web Apps – a set of web-based editions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.
While lacking the dizzying feature set of their desktop cousins, each Web App tries to match Google in providing more than enough options for compiling reports, crunching numbers and whipping up/updating a presentation.
“With Office Web Apps we’re taking what Office does best and bringing it into the cloud,” explains the Office consumer product manager for Microsoft Australia, Tina Flammer.
“People are working differently today than they used to. They’re collaborating [and] connecting with other team members on a project from different locations. So the ability to work together using Web Apps to co-author and collaborate on documents is a tremendous feature.” The apps work in any modern web browser – from Internet Explorer to Firefox, Safari and Google’s Chrome.
Source:http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/office-2010-banking-on-apps-20100511-up84.html
