Comments on: Next version of Office heads to the browser

Microsoft has decided to offer both businesses and consumers the option of running Word, Excel, and PowerPoint from within a Web browser.

[JM_Brazil]

Here we go with the web-based applications from MS again. No offence MS, I?m a very happy Office 2k3 user, but what?s the point? Where are the benefits from a web-based Office architecture? Nowadays storage space is not an issue. As a consumer, I see no advantage of being able to pull up Excel ?on-demand? from the web. As a corporation, maybe incentives to reduce license fees could be attractive, or maybe in some thin-client scenarios, but still?.why? Updated content? Security is certainly not advantage. I can just see a corporate customer working on a confidential spreadsheet ? over the web. Yeah, that?s gonna sell.

The only advantage I see is for MS itself ? as in access control and anti-piracy. Come on MS, why such radical change on a product that?s pretty much as-good-as-it-can-get? If you want to focus on innovation, try to improve your apps that need improvement - such as unified communications.

[someguy999]

No denying that they should streamline some of their applications...

But why such a radical approach? It's not a radical change if many other people are doing it. Google and others started doing it from the web side and are successfully working their way back to the desktop top (now you can edit google documents in a disconnected fashion).

If MS doesn't do this literally NO ONE will buy there products in another 3 years. And anyone who does will still be attempting as well to use their old Analog TVs after the digital cut over here in the US...

[iertry]

Where are the benefits from a web-based Office architecture?

The benefit is that you can access your documents everywhere. For example I could create a document at home and then access it through the browser at school. This saves me carrying a flash drive.

[JoyceNgo-218335993631273378369]

I can't even CARRY a flash drive to school. Yes they think students will infect their computers with viruses.

[JoyceNgo-218335993631273378369]

Oh and no CDs, floppy drives, or email. Now, it works with a few email sites but it used to not work with gmail or yahoo, no AIM, nothing. So now a few works, so I'm wondering which one.

[giggles]

"The benefit is that you can access your documents everywhere. "

No, not yet anyway. Most planes don't have internet access, and I've seen lots of folks working on their Office documents on planes. If you only had a server-based application without access to that server, you're out of luck.

[Commander_Spock]

This is a really neat comment which in part states; "I can just see a corporate customer working on a confidential spreadsheet ? over the web. Yeah, that?s gonna sell..." But, the question is - If companies like British Airways and Air France wished to consider the economic viability of an investment project then how are they going to be able to arrive at a decision when the requisite functionalities are not yet developed and integrated into the Microsoft Spreadsheet.? What do you think are some of the reasons for the current world financial and economic crises - huh!

[gerrrg]

I prefer using Google Docs and Open Office. And with Google Docs, I can browse my lists on my G1. :)

[elgarak]

"If you go into some competitive products right now and take a Word document in and then spit it out afterword, it's unrecognizable," Elop said. "You lose a lot of fidelity. "

Yeah, except this is not the fault of the competitive products. Microsoft successfully kept the format proprietary enough that no one else can properly decode it. It's a scandal that they could buy the ISO certificate for that.

[Red Matthews]

But will it run in Firefox on Linux?

[ghosford]

Absolutely! Surely you have heard that Microsoft is dedicated to open standards. That is why you can import a Word document into any competitive product, and it will print out just like would in Word. Oh, and I will be waiting to see the Great Pumpkin this Friday on Halloween!

[irperez]

This is great. This beats Google Docs. Google Docs looks aweful in comparison. It loses the formating.

[n0thng2bdone]

another anti-trust suit in the offing

[Commander_Spock]

Hmmmm.... How long before Commander_Spock and Crew have a sip of this "Fresh Brew" of LOTUS KONA!

[worldlee78]

Come on guys, there's a big GOOD reason why Microsoft should do this.

Unlike Google or Zoho, they already HAVE a desktop application for offline work. So here's the scenario as I see it:

Microsoft creates a slimmed down version of it's Office products for use online. You can create or modify your documents online when you're away from your home. Then when you get home, you can open that same document WITHOUT LOSING FORMATTING and use the more powerful desktop based product.

If Microsoft prices this correctly and provides this seamless integration, they'll be further ahead than Google could be in half the time (since they already have the userbase offline). I think the correct pricing would be 1 Web Account = 1 Office Purchase. So if you bought Word, Excel and Powerpoint, you create an account, put in your license key and those are the services you have access to.