Docs (Docs.com) was born from the marriage of Office Web Apps, the Cloud components of the Office 2010 System, and Facebook. Developed by Microsoft FUSE Labs, Docs went live on April 21st, as a Beta Facebook application, and is currently available for testing. Users will need nothing more than to sign up to Facebook Connect and start test-driving the Docs app. According to Microsoft FUSE Labs Director Lili Cheng, Docs were built on top of Office 2010, and are designed to be a social-networking Office companion to the desktop productivity suite, much like Office Web Apps.

“It’s been quite a sprint for the FUSE team to deliver this beta – from concept to its initial implementation in less than four months. The FUSE Labs mission is to explore a range of 'Future Social Experiences.' In this exploration it’s our belief that we may increase the value of Office 'docs' by giving everyone the ability to seamlessly take their friends and connections with them from Facebook to docs.com,” Cheng stated.

Docs is neither a replacement for Office 2010, nor a Google Docs killer. However, Docs is a variation of Office Web Apps, and, in this regard, a Cloud-based collection of services designed to streamline collaboration and sharing, as well as deliver the basic functionality of Office 2010, such as creating documents. Docs will make it extremely simple to work with Office 2010 documents, namely with Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.

“The fact that we’ve been able to adapt the Office 2010 'Web Apps' technology to work directly with Facebook truly speaks to the flexibility and power not just of the Facebook platform, but also of the Office system’s rich 'contextual collaboration' capabilities,” Cheng added. “And we’d never have been able to achieve our critical 'simplicity' goals had it not been for our ability to use a new test feature from Facebook that allows us to build an instantly personalized and seamless document authorization & sharing experience directly from our site.”

It appears that Docs is a also a child of a broader vision, involving social plus services with a mix of social, as defined by Ray Ozzie, Microsoft chief software architect. Docs for Facebook is, of course, available for free, and users that have already tested Office Web Apps on Windows Live Skydrive will come across a very familiar experience.

“Documents can be created directly within the app, or can be uploaded from your PC. After starting work on a document alone, you might then choose a few others with whom to share it. Or you might instead share it with all your friends, or you might share it with the world. Documents can be viewed and edited directly within a web browser – or, with a single click, you can edit them more richly and powerfully through the Microsoft Office software on your PC or Mac,” Cheng added.