14 DAY TRIAL // Well, an alternative to Google Docs and Spreadsheets it is not, but Office Live Workspace Beta is without a doubt a response to the Mountain View's online alternative to the desktop-centric Office System. Office Live Workspace Beta also is not an online version of the Office System, as Microsoft chose to describe the service as merely an extension of Office. Essentially, Office Live Workspace Beta is designed to extend the Office System into the cloud while bringing to the table advanced sharing capabilities and anywhere access.
As of March 3, Microsoft has extended the Beta program of Office Live Workspace, making the service available worldwide to the general public. "Today's announcement moves us further down the path of bringing a software plus services experience to people at home, work and school. By combining the rich client experience of Microsoft Office with flexible, intuitive service offerings, we're providing seamless computing experiences for our 500 million Office users worldwide," revealed Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division.
According to the Redmond company, the Office Live Workspace will be free while in Beta, and will also remain so after it is finalized. The service enables users to view Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF documents, from computers where the Office System is not installed. But outside of viewing the files, the capabilities offered to end users are limited. Office XP, 2003 or 2007, is necessary in order to open, edit and save files.
"Office Live Workspace lets people organize documents and projects online and work on them from almost any computer. People can save more than 1,000 Microsoft Office documents to one place online, and access and share them via the Web. They can view and comment on documents in the browser as well as create simple Web lists and Web notes, and share documents in real time through integration with Microsoft SharedView," Microsoft added.