Jason Dunn
07-13-2009, 05:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/07/09/microsoft-is-planning-an-office-party-on-monday' target='_blank'>http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/...party-on-monday</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"The idea is simple, you edit a document at home it syncs to the cloud which allows you to edit the document from another PC, via a browser or using your Windows Phone. Microsoft plans to offer this to consumers by Office Live with ad-funded and subscription offerings. For business customers, Microsoft will be offering Office Web applications as a hosted subscription service."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1247500555.usr1.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>Microsoft is announcing this today according to Neowin - it looks quite impressive, assuming the performance is there, and the cost is reasonable. I have to wonder what the limitations are though given what an important cash cow Office is for Microsoft. Although it might be that with the increase in laptop sales, and the flat-lining of desktop sales, Microsoft sees the writing on the wall and organizations will deploy Web-based Office on desktop computers and keep the "real" Office for laptops. Personally, I've never been too excited about Google Docs, but that's largely because when I do contract writing work I'm using features like reviewer notes - it's still a Microsoft Office world where I am. What about where you are? Could you live in the cloud with your Office needs?</p>