Microsoft has finally started to open up its Web-based versions of Office apps to early testers. Thursday we got access to a "technical preview" of Excel and PowerPoint on the Web (not, notably, Word). The obvious comparison that will be made is to Google Docs.
Excel
The version of Excel that we have access to is the most similar to Google Docs in capabilities. It allows simultaneous editing -- two or more people working on a spreadsheet at the same time. As in Google Docs' spreadsheet app, as soon as one person updates a part of the spreadsheet, everyone else viewing the sheet gets the change in real time, or close enough to it. Users don't have to "save" their file for the changes to get pushed out.
In raw editing capability, Excel on the Web beats Google. It will have features approaching the PC counterpart of the app, not to mention the same user interface (the "ribbon" Office users are accustomed to) instead of Google's old-timey but clear pull-down menus. The commonality between the Web and PC versions of the products should make it easier for people to pop between the desktop Office apps and their Web counterparts.
The technical preview of Office Web Apps shows how similar the online apps will be to their desktop counterparts, even though many features are missing in this early version.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)In the preview we saw the user interface of the Web-based version of Excel is extremely close to the traditional version of the app. Getting comfortable with the app took no time at all. It's just a lot slower than the desktop version. Given that this is such an early preview, we were not surprised that many tabs and features were missing from the Web app. But complex formatting, database elements, and charts from Excel files created in Windows transferred with good "fidelity" (that's Microsoft's word) to the Web. It appears users won't lose anything in translation in the move from editing documents on a desktop to the Web.
Sharing in Office Web Apps is unbelievably tedious.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)However, setting up sharing is much more tedious in Office Web Apps than it is in Google Docs. In Office Web, you don't share files, you share folders. So to share a spreadsheet, you first save it to a particular folder, and then share that folder with the people who you want to let into the file. That's no big deal if you're just sharing one file, but if you want to share different files with different groups of people, it's confusing and tedious, since you have to create a different folder for each set of people you want to share with. If you want to change the sharing specifics on one document in a folder but not others, you'll have to move the document to a different folder. This is a catastrophic design flaw. Worse, there's not even a clear "share" link. You have to find the "Shared with" entry in each folder, click on the "People I selected" link, then "Edit permissions," then enter the name of the person or people you want to share with, and then, once that person shows up in your sharing list, you have to change the default permission from "view" to "edit."
Google, for its part, lets you share files from within the files themselves, by selecting "Invite people" from the "Share" menu. It makes much more sense. You can also see all your Google docs in one big list. With Microsoft, you have to page through your folders to see your documents. Microsoft does have a nice browser plug-in for drag-and-drop uploading of files, however. That's a bonus, but not enough of one to offset the awful sharing workflow.
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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.
As noted by blogger Long Zheng, Microsoft has snapped up the Office.com domain.
The address would seem to make for a logical home for the forthcoming Web-based version of Office, though Microsoft declined to say how it plans to use the address.
"At this point it's too early to share details on our plans around www.office.com," a Microsoft representative said on Thursday. Microsoft launched a technical preview of Office 2010 last month, but the Web-based versions aren't slated to start public testing until later this year. Microsoft has said that the browser-based Office Web Applications will be a free part of the Windows Live service and will work with Safari and Firefox, in addition to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
As for Office.com, Microsoft appears to have acquired the domain from ContactOffice, which has its own Web-based suite of tools. As of Thursday morning, a message on the Office.com site warns users that they are being moved to the ContactOffice.com domain.
"As you know from the recent email we sent you, we will be transitioning the operation of your Virtual Office account to ContactOffice.com during the next 30 days," reads the current message on the site. "As part of this transition, on Monday, June 29, 2009, we changed email addresses in the office.com domain to ones in the contactoffice.com domain."
Microsoft declined to offer any details about its acquisition of the Office.com domain. A representative of ContactOffice did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
Update: Robin Wauters at TechCrunch notes that the Office.com site wasn't owned by ContactOffice itself, but operated under a revenue-sharing agreement with the U.S.-based owner of the site.
(Credit:
CNET News)
For those wondering about Microsoft exec Stephen Elop's suggestions that Office is coming to the iPhone, let me be unequivocal. It is.
How do I know? Microsoft has already said so. The software maker is planning over the coming months to introduce Web-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Those programs will run not only in Internet Explorer, but also in Safari and Firefox. And, lest there be any ambiguity, Microsoft has already confirmed that this means Office for iPhone and Office for Linux.
Don't get me wrong. Those are both big deals--particularly Office for Linux (think Netbooks and other Web appliances). It's just that they weren't new revelations, as some thought, on Wednesday.
For those who want to hear about Office for the iPhone straight from Microsoft's mouth, here's a video interview I did earlier this year with Office development chief Antoine Leblond.
Updated at 10:10 p.m. PDT to correct amount spent on R&D. The correct figure is $9 billion. Also, updated at 9:10 a.m. PDT on April 2 to correct the spelling of Stephen Elop's first name.
During an on-stage chat on Wednesday at the Web 2.0 Expo, Stephen Elop, Microsoft's president of the business division, defended himself against conference instigator Tim O'Reilly's challenge that Microsoft's traditional office applications aren't making, and may not be able to make, a successful transition to the Web.
Elop, a slick spokesman for the Microsoft way, shot back that the lessons of Web 2.0 success, from companies like Wikipedia, are making their way into enterprise computing and Microsoft products.
"What's happening behind the firewall (in business settings) is identical to what happened on the Internet," Elop said. "The difference in the enterprise is that you can translate the value into something customers are willing to pay for. While social networks themselves may be challenged financially, in the enterprise, (Web 2.0) is working."
Microsoft's Stephen Elop says his company is successfully adopting Web 2.0 principles in its business products.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET)Elop pointed to SharePoint as the indicator of this success. It is "the fastest-growing product in the history of Microsoft, and it's because the principles of Web 2.0 are being applied to it," he said. Hammering home the message of SharePoint's value, he said, "for every dollar we earn, our customers get tremendous value, and there are seven or eight dollars for developers."
Microsoft is offering some of its apps as over-the-Web services, Elop continued. Nike, Coca-Cola, and other companies are paying for online access to Microsoft-hosted apps.
In product news, Elop hinted that an iPhone version of Office may be coming. It's "not yet" near, but "keep watching," he said. He also said a cloud-based Office suite will come soon, with limited features.
O'Reilly asked if it would be free. Elop's reply: "Ad-supported. Nothing is ever free." Features in the paid versions of the suite that would not make it to the free yet ad-supported product include integration with SharePoint and "unified communications"--features most consumers likely can live without. And when can we have it? "Beta code in not too long a period of time," he said, but "not this calendar year."
Other Microsoft products we'll have to wait a while for include a Twitter competitor. "We are experimenting," he said, "in a corporate setting." He said it was a big challenge to bring microblogging functionality into the business setting, where younger employees are avid boosters for the concept but older workers (who are sticking around longer due to the recession), "aren't even comfortable with e-mail."
Despite its apparent slow pace at adopting Web concepts in its products, Elop said Microsoft continues to invest in new technologies. "The only way through this economy is improving productivity. During tough times, we have to power through. That's why we have $9 billion in R&D. We have to continue to innovate."
Previously:
Office Web Apps won't work offline
Consumers have to wait for Web-based Office
Significantly increasing the utility and competitiveness of its Web-based e-mail service, Google is enabling an experimental ability to read, write, and search Gmail messages even while not connected to the network.
Google believes almost religiously in cloud computing, the idea that computer applications and data live on the Internet rather than on PCs. But there are times when the network is inaccessible, and generally Web-based applications like today's Gmail effectively seize up under those circumstances.
Offline sidesteps that problem, the classic example being a busy executive traveling on a plane. And offline Gmail access begins a new chapter for Google's ambition to appeal to business customers for services such as Google Apps, of which Gmail is a component.
"This is a feature we've heard loud and clear the enterprise wants," said Todd Jackson, Gmail's product manager.
In coming days, Google will let Gmail users test the Web-based e-mail service even when there's no network.
(Credit: Google)Trying to sign up business customers generally means wooing them away from the dominant e-mail products, Microsoft's Exchange server software and Outlook PC software. Google and Microsoft began in separate spheres, but are ever-closer competitive rivals, each with a strong cash-generating business that can be used to subsidize forays into other markets.
There's more, too. Google Apps customers will get another major offline option "soon," too: Google Calendar access, though not initially the ability to create new entries. If the organization's administrator enables the "New Features" option, each person within that organization will get access to the calendar, Google said.
New features help make Gmail more compelling for business customers, but for many, a bigger problem is the fact that Gmail still sports its beta tag, said Gartner analyst David Smith.
"That's one of the biggest stumbling blocks for businesses," Smith said. "You're hard-pressed to find any businesses who decide to go into production with anything that a vendor calls beta, no matter how good it is." Google promises customers will get 99.9 percent availability through a service level agreement for Google Apps, which includes Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs.
Cloud vs. PC
And Microsoft, while not turning on a dime, isn't counting on a future that consists exclusively of PC-based Office. It already has a product, Office Live Workspace that lets users share and view--but not edit--Office documents online, and the next version of Office will run in a browser.
Philosophically, though, Microsoft remains firmly tethered to the PC, while Google wants to move as fast as possible to Web-based applications.
"We think the browser is the ideal platform for deploying all kinds of applications. That's where Google is placing its bet," Jackson said. "But people are traditionally limited by the speed and connectivity of the Internet. We want to fill in those gaps."
Google already developed open-source technology called Gears that helps further this cloud computing agenda by storing Web data on PC, and Gmail, used by millions, could help coax more people to install Gears. That, in turn, could help solve the chicken-and-egg problem that currently means it's not worthwhile for most Web application programmers to build in Gears support.
Greater Gears support could help other cloud-computing companies, including Zoho, which already has offline access for its Web-based e-mail application.
It's not as if offline Gmail were completely impossible. People can set up software such as Outlook or Thunderbird to read and write e-mails, for example. But offline Gmail means people won't have to learn a new interface.
Offline Gmail has been in testing for months, though Jackson wouldn't share specifics about exactly how long.
What can offline Gmail do?
"We wanted the user experience to be almost identical to the experience you get when you're online," Jackson said.
Offline Gmail stores a copy of a user's inbox on a personal computer. Most people will have to install it, a process Google walks you through, but it's built into Google's Chrome browser.
Once Gears is installed and offline access is enabled, the software automatically detects when a person's network connection is working. If the network is good, Gmail works as usual. If it's bad, it goes into offline mode, sending unsent messages and retrieving new ones when the connection is restored.
And if the network is dodgy, a person can use the intermediate "flaky connection mode," which for example queues a message to be sent immediately by storing it to the hard drive then actually sends it as soon as it can. Google positions this as useful for coffee shops and poaching a neighbor's weak-signal wireless network, but I think of this as "tech conference mode."
When enabled, offline Gmail begins by downloading, in the background, a copy of a user's archive to the user's personal computer. But the software stores about 10,000 e-mails, so heavy users won't get a complete archive.
Gmail automatically updates the local cache of messages with new and recently read items and with messages associated with a particular label on which a person has clicked, Jackson said.
Imperfect
Not everything works, though.
One big missing piece is the ability to add attachments to new messages, though attachments are visible with existing messages.
Another is the contacts tab, so forget about managing e-mail lists or adding new addresses while offline. The autocomplete option works, though, so there's no need to start remembering e-mail addresses.
English-speaking Gmail users will be able to enable offline access as Google gradually adds the ability over the next "couple" of days, said Gmail engineer Andy Palay in a blog post. "Offline Gmail is still an early experimental feature, so don't be surprised if you run into some kinks that haven't been completely ironed out yet," Palay said.
What kinds of problems occur?
"We've seen issues with the local cache getting out of sync. You have to refresh the browser, and that gets you going again," Jackson said. "In some rare circumstance, it has to be fully flushed, so we ask to disable and re-enable the feature."
But these should be unusual problems, he said: "It's been in testing for awhile on all 20,000 Googlers, so it's gotten some good testing."
Spreadsheet editing is made finger friendly with Quickoffice's Excel editing tool.
(Credit: Quickoffice)Despite the addition of Microsoft Exchange and the App Store with version 2.0 of the iPhone's firmware, the device is still a long way from competing with Windows Mobile handsets when it comes to the native editing of several popular file formats. Mobile-productivity software company Quickoffice is trying to change that with a new iPhone application that lets users edit their Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets.
Called MobileFiles Pro, this $9.99 application can pull in Excel workbooks from any of your computers (over Wi-Fi) or on the Web through MobileMe's iDisk sharing. It supports editing over multiple pages in a workbook, row and column resizing and insertion, and manages to do it all with a good deal of simplicity.
To edit a cell, you simply tap it with your thumb and type in a new value. There are also options to format what's inside it, run formulas, and add new pages.
The option to edit files joins the functionality to view other file types, including movies, music, images, Microsoft Word documents, PDFs, and iWork documents (akin to Quickoffice's QuickAccess sister product). QuickOffice says it will continue to push out editing for other file formats, such as Microsoft Word, in future releases.
MobileFiles Pro joins a handful of other iPhone applications that let you view and edit Excel spreadsheets, including Spreadsheet, Spreadsheet LX, iSpreadsheet, and the upcoming Mariner Calc app which is due in a few weeks.
Those wanting to get their hands on the Web-based versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint will have to wait a little bit longer.
Business Division President Stephen Elop said in an October interview that a technology preview of the browser-based applications would come this year, followed by a beta in 2009. However, it turns out Microsoft is using a rather tortured interpretation of the term "technology preview."
It's currently being used by fewer than 1,000 Microsoft employees, as part of a test that started last month and is slated to go through February. Consumers won't be able to try a test version of the products until sometime next year. Microsoft isn't saying when, but I'd say you'll have plenty of time to try the Windows 7 beta before you have to worry about testing the Office Web apps.
Ultimately, Microsoft is planning the release of the Office Web Applications in conjunction with the next wave of Office product, code-named Office 14. Microsoft has not offered a release date for the desktop version of Office 14.
Microsoft is planning two ways of offering the browser-based Office programs--one for consumers and the other for businesses looking to offer Office Web apps to their workers. Consumers will be able to use them through Office Live. The company currently has a free product called Office Live Workspace that lets users view and share--but not edit--Office documents.
Meanwhile, rivals like Google and Zoho already offer editing abilities. Microsoft is staking its claim on being able to offer better compatibility and document fidelity with its products. The company has recently had some big customers consider abandoning Office and move to Google Apps, but has wooed some of them back by sharing their plan for the Office Web apps.
Procter & Gamble, for example, took a long look at moving to Google Apps, but decided to stick with Microsoft after some high-powered lobbying from Redmond. Elop said that Microsoft's pitch included details on its plans for the Web-based versions of the Office programs.
"This was part of the conversation, absolutely," Elop said. "We have been sharing with customers under varying circumstances to a greater or lesser extent."
Microsoft has not definitively said how it will price the products, but it has noted that Office Live has both subscription and free products, suggesting it may have both free and paid versions of the Web apps.
For businesses, the Office Web Applications will be offered as part of Microsoft's SharePoint server. In either case, the Office Web Apps will only work when a computer is connected to the Internet.
Energizer CIO Randy Benz told me last month that he expects the Office Web Applications to open doors for him. Benz said that a lower-cost Web-only option probably won't lower the overall cost of Office for his company, but it should mean that a new class of workers gets access to Office.
"Every PC has the full (Office) suite," Benz said. "But we limit the number of PCs."
Microsoft Vice President Chris Capossela said he sees things similarly. Right now there about 500 million users of Office, he said, but a lot of those copies haven't been paid for.
"We see a tremendous opportunity to sell more," he said.
In an interview Monday, Microsoft senior vice president Chris Capossela said that, at least initially, the browser based versions of Excel, Word and PowerPoint won't have an offline mode.
"In the first generation we are certainly looking at having them be connected," he said. "For offline usage of course the Office suite is incredibly powerful." (See YouTube video below for his full comments on the matter. Apologies in advance for the bad sound quality.)
Google has been working to add an offline ability to Google Docs, while Zoho was even earlier to add the ability to work within a browser while offline.
Capossela's comments came following the launch of Microsoft Online, the company's hosted versions of Exchange and Sharepoint.
Microsoft confirmed at last month's Professional Developer Conference in Los Angeles that it was bringing to market browser-based versions of its Office applications. The company has said that a technology preview version should be available still this year.
A Microsoft blog reiterated this week that the Web-based version of Office won't be tied to either Windows or Internet Explorer.
In a blog posting on its Channel 10 site, a Microsoft blogger noted that, owing to support of Firefox and Safari, the forthcoming Office Web Applications will run on Linux and the iPhone.
The blogger, Microsoft's Sarah Perez, also noted that Microsoft won't be mandating use of Silverlight, its rival to Adobe's Flash.
"Silverlight is not required," Perez said in the Q-and-A posting. "Using Silverlight will enhance the user experience, resulting in sharper images and improved rendering. Also, the Office Live Workspace has integrated Silverlight technology into the multi-file upload function for a better experience."
Microsoft has said a technical preview of the Web-based Office apps will come later this year. Microsoft hasn't explicitly said there will be a free version, though executives have said the apps will be part of Office Live, which comes in both free and subscription flavors. Perez takes that to mean--as do I--that there will be both free and paid options.
On the corporate side, Microsoft has said the Office Web Applications will be tied to SharePoint.
The forthcoming Web-based version of Microsoft Word, like online versions of Excel and PowerPoint, won't be limited to the PC, Microsoft says.
(Credit: Microsoft)
