14 DAY TRIAL // By the end of 2011, customers with Windows Phone 7 devices will be able to take advantage of Office 2010 documents in the Cloud much in the same manner as Windows PC users.
This is the promise from Microsoft, with support for Office Web Apps being announced for Windows Phone 7 at the Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona, Spain on Feb. 14, 2011.
As you might already know by now, Office Web Apps are free, Cloud-based services offered alongside the Office 2010 desktop productivity suite.
Microsoft built the free version of Office Web Apps into Windows Live SkyDrive, with the service being closely integrated with other Windows Live properties, including Hotmail for example.
As Windows Phone 7 evolves throughout 2011, one of the new scenarios that the mobile platform will support involves Office Web Apps documents.
On WP7 devices, this will obviously be done through the Office Hub, one of the default focus areas of the platform.
“The Office Hub brings together the documents and information that are important to us in the productive side of our life.
“We bring together Office applications, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and then we integrate our SharePoint backend service for business collaboration.
“You can do a quick edit on your phone, or look something up, save your edits back to a SharePoint site in your business, and keep your team moving along even if you’re, I don't know, sitting in a keynote, for example, at Mobile World Congress,” noted Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer at the MWC 2011.
Ballmer did not provide a deadline for the introduction of Office Web Apps support for Windows Phone 7, but it sounds like the update will be coming later this year.
The delivery of Office Web Apps support is part of a much broader Microsoft strategy for the evolution of Windows Phone 7 through updates which include copy and paste functionality, Twitter integration, IE9 Mobile and multitasking.
“For consumers we'll soon add support, similar support for our free SkyDrive service. So, that consumers can share information in the same way, with their friends, their schoolmates, and others.
“Customers are already taking advantage of this ability as consumers, to roam information amongst friends, devices, through the cloud, using the Windows Phone, with our OneNote note-taking application, beautiful application if you haven't used it on the PC, but also implemented and integrated together in the Office Hub on the Windows Phone,” Ballmer added.