Microsoft’s Office Webapps Suite Emerges, Doesn’t Compete with Google Apps
Software giant Microsoft announced a web-integrated suite of office apps on Monday. It’s a step forward for Microsost, a company whose dominance in the arena of desktop office software continues to be challenged by run-anywhere, browser-based web applications from Google, Zoho and others.
The Windows Live Community Builder suite is a bundle of webapps for small businesses and non-profits. Anyone running the suite can offer all of their employees or community members a bunch of web-based services through the browser: e-mail, photo sharing services, MSN messenger, online data storage, mapping, calendaring and a personal web page builder. The new service is free.
Microsoft is basically rolling up a bunch of web services it already offers (Hotmail, Live Drive, etc.) into one package that can be branded, customized and run on any hosted domain. The applications can be administered by organization’s internal IT people. So yes, it’s a lot like what Google Apps offers for small businesses.
Except for one bit — the actual editing applications.
While Google Apps includes a full set of apps (document editor, spreadsheet maker, slideshow constructor), Microsoft’s new suite emphasizes communications and document sharing while leaving the actual editing to Microsoft applications already installed on the desktop. Of course, Microsoft doesn’t want to cannibalize its desktop office apps business by offering free, web-based alternatives. But as a result, it’s like its competing in a different league altogether.
The official Windows Live announcement on the blog of Microsoft Online Services Lead Harvey Sanchez mentions "Quick Apps" to help speed productivity among community members, but there are scant details about what those Quick Apps are (see the crusty, pixelated graphic above). Web-integrated chat and calendars? Most likely. A browser-based Word doc editor? Most likely not.
We’ll post more details about the functionality of these apps as soon as we have them.
Image courtesy of Microsoft.
