14 DAY TRIAL // In just nine months after launch, Office in the Cloud is now available worldwide in over 190 countries.
Office Web Apps are designed as the online companions of the desktop Office 2010 productivity suite, with the two working better in tandem for users, but neither a replacement of the other.
Available free of charge globally, Office Web Apps can be accessed through either Windows Live Hotmail or Windows Live SkyDrive, both requiring nothing more than a valid Windows Live ID.
On March 8, 2011, the Cloud components of Office 2010 were rolled out in another 18 new countries, and can now be leveraged by users in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
“Rollout to Central and South America marks our global grand finale, making the Web Apps available worldwide in more than 190 countries – just nine months since they launched on June 7, 2010,” revealed Microsoft’s Jevon Fark.
For Office Web Apps Microsoft focused on just four of the products that are bundled under the traditional Office package, namely Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.
Customers can easily store they documents online, access them from anywhere, share the files with friends or collaborate with co-workers.
While collaboration and sharing are two of the foremost capabilities of Office Web Apps, fact is that the Cloud flavor of Office also enables users to simply view documents, and even edit them, with in their browser.
“Out of approximately 2 billion internet users worldwide, there are roughly 750 million Office users. To us, this delta represents tremendous opportunity for 1) offering our 750 million (and growing) customers the best online companion to Office; and 2) offering people from all walks of the life the ability to view, edit, and share Office documents from anywhere with a browser and an internet connection,” Fark added.
According to statistics released by the software giant, in excess of 30 million people around the world are already taking advantage of Office Web Apps.