By now everyone has heard of “cloud computing”. It’s one of the “hot new things”, even though it’s been around for years. I’ve even written several previous posts around cloud computing services, analyses, etc. Most modern computer users are using cloud computing on a daily basis, accessing databases of information about themselves and others stored on social networking and social media sites. Password storage, online file storage, photo albums, the list goes on and on.
However, the last thing most people would associate with the “cloud” is Microsoft, especially Microsoft Office. Traditionally requiring hundreds of megabytes on a hard drive, needing regular updates from Microsoft, and costing anywhere from $100.00 to $500.00 per machine for a license, Microsoft Office has traditionally been one of the mainstays of the workstation-based computing model.
NO MORE! Microsoft has been hard at work to create a cloud-based option for Office products, similar to what Google has done with Google Apps and Google Docs. For years, companies and individuals have been able to buy hosted Microsoft Exchange or Sharepoint services from various Microsoft Partners. The newer version of that is Microsoft Online Services, of which NSI Partners is a reseller. I have written about this previously, and it moves Exchange, Sharepoint, IM and online meeting solutions even more into the cloud than before. However, Microsoft has made 2 more big strides in this direction of late. The first is available now, and comes with your live.com, hotmail.com, or msn.com account. The second is still in beta (Office 365) and I will be writing about that in a future post.
So, what are Office Web Apps? Simple: web-based versions of Word, Excel, Power Point, and OneNote. They are free for use for anyone with their live.com, msn.com, or hotmail.com sign-in. Once you sign into your account, look for the Office menu button at top. From here, a drop-down allows you to navigate to Recent Documents, your stored document folders, or create a new Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or OneNote document. You can also click the Office menu button to take you to a new interface, such as the one dispayed below from my login.
Office Web Apps
The documents are stored using SkyDrive, a feature of Microsoft Live that’s been around since the launch of Vista and which now gives you up to 25GB of online storage at no cost. Designed as a “cloud hard drive”, the SkyDrive allows you to place documents here to work from, rather than your hard drive, thumb drive, etc. The addition of Office Web Apps makes SkyDrive much more useful, though, as I can now create, edit, download, or email Office documents from the web WITHOUT needing to have Microsoft Office installed on my computer!
SkyDrive and Office Web Apps also allows you to share portions or all of your documents with friends/family/co-workers, and you can even set permission levels to allow them to edit, add, and delete files from your online library. Microsoft Office Web Apps are also viewable from several mobile device browsers (Safari 4 on newer iPhone models and IE on upcoming Windows Phone 7).
Moving steadily upward into the Cloud, Web Apps are a great new tool for those of us who need to keep our documents formatted with Microsoft Office file types. Enabling creation, sharing, and editing of the most common Office document types from any compatible web browser, for free, should keep Microsoft and the Office product line serious contenders for the standard choice in the electronic document universe.
Next year, when Microsoft fully unveils Office 365, Microsoft Office will take on a per-user, monthly subscription fee model, and Microsoft will move even more into the stratosphere. Currently in closed Beta, NSI Partners is one of the companies testing these new services out. Look for a future post about our experiences with Office 365. For now, enjoy your web-enabled Office experience!
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