After just six months since it first introduced Office Live Workspace Beta, Microsoft revealed that in excess of 1 million users have signed-up to the service. While on track to deliver the final version of Office Live Workspace by the end of 2008, the Redmond company applauded the milestone as an indication of the clear success of the project.

 

Designed as a complementary service to the Office System, which remains with its roots dug deep on the desktop, Office Live Workspace is the closest Microsoft has to a competitor for Google Docs and Spreadsheets.

 

"It takes companies years to attract a strong customer base such as this. We’re excited about Office Live Workspace growth and innovation yet to come," stated Kirk Gregersen, director of consumer and small-business product management for Microsoft Office. Launched on March 3, 2008, the Office Live Workspace Beta has, by September 3, reached its first half a year of general availability.

 

The service enables end users to upload, view and share Office 2007 file format documents, while all the time delivering collaboration capabilities. With Office Live Workspace, however, users will not be able to edit documents, as the traditional Office System is required for such tasks. At this point in time, the Beta offers support for no less than 11 languages, but Microsoft is looking to take the number up to approximately 40 with the availability of the Release to Web version of Office Live Workspace.

 

"The pace at which people are signing up for the beta tells us that they are looking for ways to resolve the complexities of their work, school and home projects through a range of choices," Gregersen added, indicating that Microsoft is not keen on delivering an online equivalent to the Office productivity suite. Still, since the service debuted into beta, Microsoft has continued to add features and functionality, including an activity panel, notifications, direct links, multi-file upload capabilities, enhanced file sharing, and support for Mozilla Firefox.