Microsoft is getting ready to wrap up the development process of the Cloud extension of its Office System. Office Live Workspace Beta is designed as a Microsoft response to Google Docs and Spreadsheets, but not a competitor or an alternative. In fact, Office Live Workspace Beta is by all means not an equivalent of the desktop-centric Office System, but merely an online extension, proving yet again the Redmond giant's determination to a new Software plus Services business model.

 

According to Kirk Gregersen, director of product management for Office Live Workspace and Office Consumer and Small Business (as cited by Mary Jo Foley), the service is planned to come out of Beta by the end of 2008. Gregersen failed to indicate a specific delivery deadline for the Release to Web version of Office Live Workspace, and only pointed to the year's end for the milestone.

 

Office Live Workspace debuted into public Beta at the start of March 2008 and Microsoft's focus with the service was to deliver anywhere access to documents as well as sharing and collaborative capabilities which are lacking from the desktop product. Back in March 2008, Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division, indicated that Office Live Workspace was a way for the company to offer a new S+S computing experience to office users.

 

In August 2008, Microsoft delivered the most recent update to Office Live Workspace beta, increasing the number of languages supported and the service's integration with Mozilla's open source browser Firefox. Gregersen revealed that with the availability of the final version of Office Live Workspace, approximately 40 languages would be supported. According to Microsoft's user behavior analysis on Office Live Workspace, the service is actually preferred for its collaborative features and not for its remote access capability. In addition, Gregersen indicated that usage patterns of Office Live Workspace Beta revealed that end users are not actually that keen on using a fully-fledged online version of the Office System.