Online Office gives Microsoft Open Web religion
Despite the fact that Microsoft has competing products of its own, some influential folks within the company have seen some merits of "Open Web" technology that's a standard part of browsers.
The interesting case in point is Microsoft Office 14, the upcoming version of one of the company's core products and profit engines. The software, due in beta form in 2009, is of Microsoft's highest-profile efforts to bring its desktop software power to the Web.
Chris Capossela
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)Specifically, when it comes to the best tools for building rich Web applications, Microsoft has promoted its own Silverlight plug-in as superior to the lowly JavaScript that's built into browsers.
"I would use Silverlight any place starting new," Brad Becker, who as group product manager for rich client platforms at Microsoft helps oversee Silverlight, said in a 2008 interview. The online Google Docs applications are built using JavaScript-based technology called Ajax, but, he asked, "How many shops out there have the Ajax chops that Google does?"
However, Silverlight might well be easier to program and offer slicker results, but JavaScript has the advantage when it comes to ubiquity. Thus, Office 14 will be built on JavaScript, with optional Silverlight-based features for those who have the plug-in installed, said Chris Capossela, the senior vice president who oversees product management for Microsoft group that builds Office.
"The fundamental premise for Web apps is you want to be able to get at your Web apps no matter where you are," Capossela said in an interview.
Silverlight optional
Though Microsoft has expressed confidence Silverlight will spread broadly--by luring people to install Silverlight to watch the Olympics online for example--it's far from ubiquitous today. And Microsoft wants people to be able to use Office 14 online not just from their own computers, but also from friends' machines or airport kiosks where people don't have administrative privileges to install software, Capossela said.
Microsoft's demonstration of Web-based Excel. (Click to enlarge.)
(Credit: Microsoft)Silverlight will improve the online Office 14 interface when installed, though Capossela wouldn't share details of how beyond an earlier demonstration of zooming a document to high magnification. But, he argued, Microsoft doesn't have to reproduce all the features of ordinary Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote in its online incarnations.
"You're probably not going to work for three hours straight in a browser, but you're going to want to do some lightweight work no matter what machine you have," he said. And if you're editing documents on your own computer, "We already have something on your machine. It's called Office. It defeats the purpose of doing productivity in the browser."
Balancing act
The view sheds some light on the balance Microsoft hopes to strike between the regular and Web versions of Office. Although the Web version of Office will be available for free in ad-supported form and in a licensed or hosted form for companies willing to pay, the company obviously still considers the PC-based version of Office the cornerstone of the business.
Google, on the other hand, which has no desktop software cash cow either to protect or benefit from, has every incentive to make Google Docs as powerful as possible.
That means Google has a stronger incentive to support JavaScript advances.
JavaScript speed has become a horse race among most browser makers, with Google loudly trumpeting performance of its V8 JavaScript engine built into Chrome. Internet Explorer trails Chrome, Apple's Safari, and Mozilla's Firefox in JavaScript execution speed, though the new IE 8 does better than its predecessor.
JavaScript runs a lot more than just Google Docs on the Web, so Microsoft doesn't have an incentive to retard IE progress just to spite its rival. But the fact that the company does have a version of Office that runs natively on the PC means the company isn't as reliant on JavaScript advances.
Microsoft's demonstration of Web-based PowerPoint. (Click to enlarge.)
(Credit: Microsoft)"We can make a very good experience in the browser and we don't have to compete with the rich-client experience we have today," Capossela said.
Ultraparanoia
What will be most intriguing to see as Office 14 arrives is whether Microsoft's attitudes shift. After all, Office is widely used, and the company certainly doesn't want people to have a negative experience with online Office overall or online Office in IE when there are competitors. So there are incentives for the company to improve JavaScript in IE, even though they aren't as strong as Google's.
Done right, online Office could help cement Microsoft's power as cloud computing arrives, bringing advantages such as the ability to let multiple people simultaneously edit the same document. Done wrong, it could yield power to Google as it seeks to expand its search power into other domains.
But though Microsoft may not be the first to the cloud with online productivity tools, don't expect it to be complacent. The Office business successfully navigated the transition from software running on isolated PCs to software that relies on a server for e-mail access or collaboration, Capossela said, and the company is paying close attention to the cloud transition.
"The use of these Web apps today is incredibly small," Capossela said. However, "we always feel ultraparanoid about missing out on something."
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
And if it is online, wouldn't you want it to be free? Or pretty close to free?
I know that one of the biggest features that proponents of online products like this stress time and again is collaboration, i.e., people can get in and do all their comments and corrections on the same document or presentation.
Personally, I don't want anyone messing with anything I create. Comment, yes. But not get into the guts of the thing and cause more work for me by screwing up styles, graphics, etc.
What's that old anecdote about the camel being the result of the work of a committee that was trying to build a horse?
I don't do a lot of collaborative work, but when I do, having a canonical shared document online sure is easier than mailing versions around.
I have to say, the Silverlight based user interface of Office Live Workspace is amazing. You have to try it out, if you haven't already.
When is MS planning to release Silverlight for Linux?
Very cool. I yust checked out Moonlight's website. :)
I'm interested in how limited Microsoft "Office Suite" will be with regards to Mac OS X with Safari.
Hard drives have been getting biger and cheaper. There's no issue with having a 500MB application on your computer or flash drive if it means much better performance.
Now, that's a problem for some commercial software models, because there are free apps that because of the freedoms of their license encourage development of network linking modules...e.g. in OpenOffice.org there is an add-on that allows me to save a file to both my local hard drive and my google docs account.
Yaw............nnnn! Can someone please tell us when those Hybrid "Lotus Kona" Java Beans start falling from the trees!
Here again Microsoft is faced with porting its applications to HTML and this time trying to push browsers to adopting a completely proprietary standard Silverlight, instead of complying with new web standards that could improve their applications and the web generally.
Finally all of the major browsers have adopted CSS's downloadable fonts (EOT does not count as it is not a standard) as well as SVG. Those two standards would make any application in HTML much more powerful. By not adopting those standards, Silverlight has the edge that it might not otherwise have.
I hope that Microsoft quickly adopts the web standards, offers improvements to them and then uses them. If at that point HTML fails then at least they have shown a fair effort. Of course that would not bode well for open standards and the webs use of HTML, but it would at least be a fair fight.
Daniel Bennett
http://www.advocatehope.org
That being said, it is good to see competition in the cloud and hope we will all more apps that meet our needs regardless of vendor.
- by jairomejiagomez July 20, 2009 3:26 PM PDT
- Dear friend:
- Reply to this comment
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(18 Comments)You might be one of those who are abandoning Christianity; one for whom religious beliefs are not just irrelevant, but baseless. You might be right, at least to some extent. Some traditional beliefs are not true, and the ?God? of main line traditions simply does not exist. Most people don?t dare to confront their religious beliefs, and opt for the status quo, afraid of abandoning the ?certainty? of their convictions. Most have become marginalized from the institutional Church, and try to find an environment in which they may fill a vacuum in their lives.
An illuminating book gives hope to you! The author accepted the challenge of finding the One who is recognized, even by Gnostics and atheists?the Existence. ?Christianity Reformed From its Roots ? A Life Centered in God? is perhaps a generation ahead of the current mentality, but you might find that there is something for you, too!
Bishop John Shelby Spong says of this book that it ?rightly points out that those who seek to defend Christianity?s past are also killing Christianity?s future.? You may see two reviews of the book (links below) by eminent philosophers and thinkers that might give you an idea if this book is an insightful reading for you. You might look also at excerpts of the book at this link of Amazon.com.
Sincerely,
Jairo Mejia, M. Psych., Santa Clara University
Retired Episcopal Priest - Author
Carmel Valley, California
http://www.mbay.net/~jmejia/Grudzen.htm
http://www.mbay.net/~jmejia/Churcher.htm