Microsoft adding collaboration, more Office to Office Web Apps

Microsoft announced an update to its Office Web apps, focusing on collaboration between coworkers, as well as bringing new features over from its Office software package.

The idea is to “make it easier for users to start and finish projects on the Web,” said Amanda Lefebvre, senior program manager for Office Web Apps, in a recorded video that’s published to the Web. The features that Microsoft showed are still in development, and will be eventually rolled out to users, executives said.

Microsoft has always struck a balance between leaving features only with its for-pay Office suites or offering them as part of its free Office Web apps as well. Add too few features to latter, and users will turn elsewhere for alternatives. But if Microsoft adds too many capabilities to its free Web apps version, customers may consider ditching the company’s standalone software or its Office 365 subscription service. Microsoft has also expanded its reach to other platforms, using the Web apps to penetrate markets like the iPad, while its dedicated software serves the Mac, the PC, Windows Phone, and now the iPhone, with the just-released Office Mobile.

YouTube/Microsoft

The Office Web App version of PowerPoint includes new SmartArt capabilities.

Microsoft pushed Outlook to the Web in 2000, and moved the rest of the core Office apps—Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote—to the Web in 2010. The thrust of the new releases is real-time co-authoring, or collaboration, a feature that Office’s rival, Google Apps, has touted for some time. (Microsoft added real-time collaboration to its Office software with the Office 2010 revision for Windows.)

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Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2042543/microsoft-adding-collaboration-more-office-to-office-web-apps.html#tk.rss_all

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