Microsoft Unveils Office 2010, Free Online

By Jane McEntegart
published

Microsoft has announced more details about the company's planned foray into the online office applications market.

As suspected, Microsoft's today released more information about the suite of online applications set to rival the likes of Google Docs. First announced last October, Office Web will bring stripped down, lighter versions of Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint to customers' web browsers.

Microsoft has said that the software will be free and, similar to Google Docs and its availability to Gmail users, will be available to anyone with a Windows Live! account.

Office Web aside, the company also release some details about the full featured, offline version of Office 2010, which will bring a plethora of new features including co-authoring in Word and video editing in PowerPoint. Microsoft announced that Office 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Visio 2010 and Project 2010 have reached the technical preview engineering milestone and starting today, tens of thousands of people will be invited to test Office and Visio as part of the Technical Preview program.

Check out Microsoft's website for more details.

Jane McEntegart
Topics
Software
21 Comments Comment from the forums
  • scook9
    WOAH. Microsoft doing something for free? you cant even get tech support over the phone without a credit card handy from them.....
    Reply
  • tipoo
    Damn it! The Office 2008 torrent JUST finished!


    :P
    Reply
  • computabug
    tipooDamn it! The Office 2008 torrent JUST finished!What office 2008?



    So, does this mean we can use Microshit Office in gnu linux without WINE, just like Docs? I'd only use office because of the eye candy. When people tell me it's not compatible with Word, I say "screw off, MS supporters!" I don't understand, why do people like to use proprietary formats instead of the standards?
    Reply
  • tommysch
    Microsoft have been providing me with free OS since windows 95. Id buy them at OEM prices if they were available since I build my own computers... When MS try to rip you off, rip them off even more. Anyway they dont really care since it gives them a good market penetration among the hardcore power users.
    Reply
  • hellwig
    Online Office, perfect for when that one person still stuck in the 90's sends you a ill-formatted document that just won't open properly in OpenOffice.org or Google Docs.

    This may provide some really strong contention to Google Docs, as long as it doesn't require IE 8 + Silverlight, cause then no one is going to use it.
    Reply
  • cozalp
    scook9WOAH. Microsoft doing something for free?
    Nobody would pay for it while Google is offering the same service for free. This is why competitions are good for the user.
    Reply
  • Herbert_HA
    God, a video editing Powerpoint. Could this software be more bloated and unefficient???
    Reply
  • E7130
    Herbert_HAGod, a video editing Powerpoint. Could this software be more bloated and unefficient???
    Well, I like Docs, but it lacks many features that MS will be able to have. I'm liking the free web version, it will be handy.
    Reply
  • duckmanx88
    im still using ms word xp on my laptop. i have 2007 on my desktop and MS word is just completely bloated and makes writing a simple document more tedious when im trying to add a header, margins, font color. they even removed the undo/redo buttons. i dont like to ctrl z/y.
    Reply
  • tenor77
    Nice online options.
    I actually like using Office. It's integration between the different offerings is nice. I just don't like paying for it. Luckily work foots the bill.
    Reply