Microsoft is testing a new version of its market-leading productivity suite for Windows PCs that will tie-up with new Web-based Office. The applications offered by Microsoft will be similar to those offered by Google including a suite of lightweight online applications.
Google’s online spreadsheet and office related applications has been gaining popularity. To counter that Microsoft plans to take Office online, with a new series of free Office Web applications.
“Office Web Applications, the online companion to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote applications will allow you to access documents from anywhere. You can even simultaneously share and work on documents with others online,” says Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview Website.
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| Microsoft office vs Google Docs |
It will be an ad-supported web-suite, which will be available to more than 400 million Windows Live consumers at NO extra cost.
Google has been struggling to match the reputation of Microsoft office, as its own suite failed to perform up to their expectation. But Google is offering free version of this suite, thus attracting more than 15 million customers. Since then Microsoft has been under pressure to provide more free applications. Microsoft is also set to announce the launch of its internet-based operating system, called Azure. This will see it give tough competition to Google in the business of selling computing resources over the internet and by allowing developers to buy capacity to run their applications based on the amount of storage, bandwidth or any other resources that they use.
Microsoft has also announced that it will reduce the number of office editions from 8 to 5. The Microsoft Office suite will be available in the first half of next year.