Microsoft may have taken its time getting on board the cloud bandwagon, but with Office Live it may have done enough to persuade companies that are dithering about adoption. The “downside” is that to use Microsoft Office Live you have to have the PC version of Office with some plug ins that link the two modules. However, the linking is absolutely seamless. Also, as you would expect, the interface is very Microsoft and so there is no chance of alienating even the biggest luddite in the company. It is very cleverly designed and very sleek. Full points to Microsoft for that.
When you start Office Live you are invited to create workspaces, essentially folders into which documents are to be stored. When creating workspaces you can choose a blank template or one of the ready to use custom templates such as class, essay, event, household, travel and so on, showing quite clearly that there is more to this just than just targeting businesses.
I created two – blog from the blank template and a travel workspace for a visit to Greece later this year. In the travel workspace the template automatically provides a trip itinerary and personal data form documents, plus two check lists for packing and a travel checklist.
For the blog I chose new Word document and this started the desktop software. When saving the document because of the plug ins Word recognises your established online workspaces and asks which one do you want the document stored in. Other options from the dropdown menu are for Excel and PowerPoint,plus a note facility and task, contact, and event lists.
In true cloud computing form there is the facility to share workspace documents and this is simply achieved by typing in the email address of whoever you want to share the information with and whether you want them to have editing or read only access. The recipient receives an email with a link to the workspace. If that person does not have a Live identify they have to create one which takes about a minute. However, they can do so with their own email address, they do not have to sign up for a Hotmail account which is a mature approach rather than trying to get the world and its wife signed up to the in-house webmail facility. On accessing the workspace they can see all the documents and a tag tells them whether they have read or editor rights. Once signed in they also receive a template email from Microsoft explaining the service and there are hints and tips and video links.
One drawback is that if you share workspaces you share all documents within that workspace; I haven’t been able to work out how you can share just one document from within a chosen workspace.
Starting from the other end of the service, ie by launching Word first on your desktop PC, the plug-in allows you to link to the cloud server and choose which documents you want access or you can start afresh and then save to whatever workspace you have created.
Office Live is clearly in beta but it shows that Microsoft is working with the Office community in mind and not being overly dictatorial in how you have to approach it, apart from having to have the desktop software aside.
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