Browser-based Office shows its face
The technology preview of Office Web Apps allows users to edit Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations and view (but not edit) Word documents.
(Credit: Microsoft)Microsoft plans on Thursday to start public testing for the first browser-based version of Office, although the technology preview is at least as notable for what it doesn't include as what it does offer.
The limited test of the so-called Office Web Apps includes versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, but not the OneNote note-taking application. And while Excel and PowerPoint offer the ability to edit and create documents, the current Web-based version of Word can only be used to view documents, essentially the same capability it already offers as part of its current Office Live Workspace product.
Microsoft said the Web versions of OneNote and Word share "the same editing surface," and that the technology is still being worked on.
"We made the hard decision to turn off editing in the Word Web App at Tech Preview, in order for people to have the best experience at this early stage," Microsoft said.
Microsoft plans to offer the Web Apps preview first to users of Windows Live SkyDrive, giving them 25GB worth of storage.
The Office Web Apps are scheduled to be launched along with Office 2010--the next version of Office, with both browser-based and desktop programs due out in the first half of next year. The Office Web Apps will be made available to consumers as a free, ad-supported part of Windows Live, while businesses will be able to offer them to workers via their own SharePoint servers or through the Microsoft Online subscription service.
Microsoft said it will have editing abilities for Word and a version of OneNote by the time the Office Web Apps launch in final form. The current technology preview will be made available to tens of thousands of users, with a broader beta planned for later this fall. However, Microsoft would not commit to offering editing abilities for Word by the beta release.
Once finished, the browser-based versions will all offer editing, though not all of the capabilities of their desktop counterparts. Excel and OneNote will feature live co-authoring abilities, while all the Office Web Apps will work only while a user is connected to the Internet.
Microsoft also takes a different approach when it comes to sharing documents than do its rivals. While Google Apps lets users share a document directly, Office Web Apps enables sharing at the folder level--meaning that to share a document, a user must save it into a folder on Windows Live SkyDrive and then share that folder.
Forrester analyst Sheri McLeish said that the Office Web Apps do appear to be more complicated than rivals such as Google Docs or Zoho Office.
"Google and Zoho are very easy to get started on today, requiring just a step to register before being able to work on a document or spreadsheet," McLeish said. "Microsoft's Office Web Apps do not seem to match that level of ease to get started."
On the plus side, McLeish noted that Office offers a depth not found in its online rivals.
"Once you are in the Web Apps the experience is very much the same as the desktop suite," McLeish said. "And for enterprises, deployment choices to host the Web Apps themselves on-premise is a big differentiator from Google and Zoho."
As for the current release, Microsoft noted that it is still in pre-beta form and has a number of known issues.
"It's still going to be rough around the edges," said Ural Cebeci, a senior product manager in Microsoft's Office unit.
The Office Web Apps are being certified to work in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari, and may also work in Google's Chrome--although Microsoft isn't guaranteeing Chrome compatibility.
Microsoft had previously indicated on several occasions that the Safari compatibility meant that users would be able to edit documents on their iPhone, but Cebeci said that iPhone users will only be able to view documents--capability similar to that offered on other smartphones.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
What will make or break this is whether it retains the keyboard shortcuts that make Excel manipulation so effective for proficient users. Google apps are fine if you're just viewing something someone shared with you, but it's useless for anything other than simple viewing because you have so much less control over everything.
"We made the hard decision to turn off editing in the Word Web App at Tech Preview, in order for people to have the best experience at this early stage,"
When I read things like this, it sounds to me like they should be saying more along the lines of "something went wrong and we're trying to fix it so it's going to be delayed and we don't know when you can expect it."
This just sounds like verbiage to satiate people and make the company look like a saint.....AT&T (MMS), TomTom (iPhone cradle).
So, to use this feature of Office, I essentially have to be on a large monitor, since it is of limited use on a smaller screen (say, when I'm in an airport trying to view something at the office, you know, like something like this was SUPPOSED to allow).
Dumb.
(Yes, I can spend a bunch of time configuring a bunch of things to hide toolbars and status bars and what-not... That's not the point. Microsoft seems utterly incapable of doing basic "human interface" thought experiments! Is Microsoft so impressed with its abilities to draw GUI elements without the blue screen of death that they have to take up my whole screen with them? it's like "look ma, look at what I can draw without crashing!")
You could also just remote into your desktop if need be.
If a window is drawn (the browser borders), and yet, say, 50% of the stuff inside the window is stuff besides the content I would be looking at, then it is bad design. Your comment is along the lines of "well, the car only gets 10 mpg, so we will double the size of the gas tank". Bad design is bad design.
It isn't about being "used to working with limited resources". it is looking at the product they are trying to build, and then optimizing for that. I thought (and this could be where I'm wrong), that the intent of a web version of Office was to give you the full Office experience without having to clog up your hard drive with regular Office. In other words, you don't want to take up a limited size hard disk (i.e. a laptop).
I also fail to see how, if this much of the browser frame is clogged up with non-content stuff, how they ever expect it to run on something like an iPhone. For an Excel spreadsheet, does this mean I can only look at one cell at a time? Seriously?
The rest of the computer industry has seemed to figure this out. Macs are notorious for making the design simple - the latest Quicktime X on Snow Leopard draws a borderless window with transparent controls that only appear when you use your mouse. Because, if you are watching a movie, chances are you, um, want to watch it and not be dazzeled by the triangular "play" button. Chrome does this, too, by minimizing what is seen, and putting the tabs in the title bar.
Microsoft seems to like going the other way.
Microsoft seems to figure this (video playing) out ... The latest Media Player on Windows Vista or Windows 7 draws a borderless window with transparent controls that only appear when you use your mouse. Because, if you are watching a movie, chances are you, um, want to watch it and not be "dazzeled" (sp.) by the triangular "play" button that doesn't appear in Media Player when it's maximized. Chrome - not made by Microsoft or Apple, but available to both company's operating systems - does this, too, by minimizing what is seen, and putting the tabs in the title bar.
Microsoft seems to like going the same way as everyone else, I guess.
Isn't that really what you're trying to say? :) Cheers!
As I said somewhere else, I think they are improving, but they still seem way too enamored with themselves over the amount of pixels they can draw that don't help me do any actual work. (Vista/Windows 7 translucency on the borders, for example). They also seem enamored with cartoonish color schemes (bright orange/blue/green/yellow for the Office apps) and sharp contrasts to give that "3-D look" (a sharp light blue to dark blue, for example, as opposed to a smooth gradient). But now i've way digressed away from the original topic (amount of screen real estate taken up by the web version of Office). :-)
I guess if I can work with spreadsheets one row or so at a time and sort of remember what is going on in the other cells, then I'm just fine.
Screen real estate is valuable, even if you have a 30" screen. I hate screen hogging "features" like the Ribbon, unnecessarily wide title bars, oversized controls, etc. That has been a huge complaint of mine with respect to Office and this just makes it look even worse.
But it does look promising. The lack of some functions is not a big problem since most Office user don't use everything that it offers.
So there you have it, 100% screen space for your excel spreadsheet.
Glass half empty?
- Pop the Office Web App out of the SkyDrive interface, so that you don't see the Windows Live header.
- Hide the ribbon (just like you can in Office 2007 and 2010, and in just about all other apps that use the Ribbon in Windows).
Why not try getting in the beta and checking it out for yourself?
1) Largest growth space for PCs right now is the netbook market, which use small screens
2) Even larger growth space for "computing" devices is the smartphone space, which has even smaller screens.
Now, I've worked with Microsoft a lot in my career, and have had many friends that have worked for them. And here is what I know... if you are a developer, you pretty much can snap your fingers and get the latest umpteen-core Xeon with multiple GB of memory, terabytes of storage, and with a gigantic screen (or dual display). When this is what you do work on, it is no wonder the code you produce will be large, require heavy resources, and not work well when run on something that is optimized to run on a battery.
Vista was proof point #1 of this. MS has at least seemed to figure this out (slightly) on Windows 7 (it is still a pig, but a smaller pig). When are they going to really "get it"?
As to your comment - yes, I can hide the ribbon, and the status bar (seriously, who really uses that?!?!?!) and other stuff. I must do this myself, and if I do it and somehow the app doesn't exit cleanly, it is back the next time I load. Also, most of the usage model for the new Office is based on the ribbon - the old keyboard shortcuts that many got to know and love (which allowed us to turn of the toolbars) don't always work the same way. The menus have changed, so half the time you can only find what you want to do by having the ribbon on.
I like the ribbon, actually. Which I kind of had to learn to like since "ALT+<blah>+<blah>" stopped working for many things so I had to use the thing. But it is the wrong solution for certain environments - the environments that are experiencing high growth - and they don't seem to recognize that.
Unfortunately, Open Office seems to be headed down this same path, which is a shame.
I don't think many people want to edit their docs much on smartphones and such, but in this video and other sites that provide better screenshots you will see that when just viewing a Word/Powerpoint/Excel/Onenote doc you get an extremely minimal interface for maximum viewing area. But the point that agkantor makes is that CNET in their wisdom took a screenshot of Excel running inside the SkyDrive interface... one click and your office web app is running in a new browser window without all the junk taking up real estate (status bar/menus/browser buttons/etc)
2 things.
1) A bit of adblock and a virtually full featured Office suite for free?
2) I'm assuming the ability to use it will require an Office 2010 license. Otherwise, their sales are gonna plummet.
Already using Google Aps.
No need to switch and definately no need to shell out lots of $$$ for office capability.
"The Office Web Apps will be made available to consumers as a free, ad-supported part of Windows Live".
Sounds like you'd shell out a lot of $$$...
1st thing.. Office Live Apps is free ...
2ndly 99% of documents arent created using Google apps, sure its fine for an email but have you tried to do anything that is up to todays business or school standards? and converting docs always strips out at least 50% of the formatting... Google apps is for amateurs.
3rd Google's ad engine reads all your docs/emails and advertises to you based on that, so most likey you are buying something, you are already paying lots of $$$$ to them.
Google Apps is free and accessible.
Like I said, it is too late, I use Google Apps. Don't need MS offering even if it is free.
And I certainly don't want a Live account. They sucked me into signing up for one once, then told me that the service I wanted wasn't available in my country. Felt ripped off.
Google all the way.
"We made the hard decision to turn off editing in the Word Web App at Tech Preview,
in order for people to have the best experience at this early stage, Microsoft said. "
Knowing the marketing speak of Micro$oft, this most likely means one of the following in plain English:
1. Our programmers have been utterly useless in making the editing feature work without bugs.
or
2. We haven't been able to figure out how to screw potential clients for their money to use the feature.
Micro$oft limping behind ... as usual
Arthur
Clearly you dont like MS but theres one simple truth that you have to understand... Microsoft owns business productivity.. they are the kings of office, they arent limping behind anyone.
Chrome will not unless it reaches similiar adoption in the market...
can't tell you how i know.. but i do
When is Apple going to make a decent Office application? Many of their moronic users still use *gasp*Microsoft Office.
- by OfficerNelson September 18, 2009 7:36 AM PDT
- If anything's Silverlight-based, it just won't work. I don't expect much from OWA.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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- by heygeo September 19, 2009 7:14 AM PDT
- not Silverlight... and by the way.. its excellent, from what I've seen this blows Google out of the water.
- Like this
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