After months of speculation about what it would do to stave off potential encroachments on its Office turf by Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Microsoft has spelled out its strategy: Office Live Workspace.
Office Live Workspace is, in Microsoft’s words, “a new web-based feature of Microsoft Office which lets people access their documents online and share their work with others.” It’s aimed at consumers and small-business users, not corporations who are interested in being able to access their documents anywhere — from any computer and any browser. In other words, Microsoft isn’t playing up Office Live Workspace as a head-to-head competitor with Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE). Microsoft is positioning its Microsoft-hosted SharePoint, Exchange and Office Communications Services (which it has now rebranded with as its family of “Office Online” services) as its GAPE competitors.
Microsoft is taking sign-ups from those interested in beta testing the English-language version of Office Live Workspace starting October 1. The actual invitation-only beta isn’t likely to launch for another month, according to Rajesh Jha, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Office Live. The beta and the final versions of the service (at least for saving/accessing up to 1,000 documents) will be free, the Softies said. No word on how much, if anything, Microsoft plans to charge once users have more than 1,000 Word, Excel and PowerPoint files they want to store online.
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