September 20th, 2009
A close-up look at the new Office Web Apps
Microsoft flipped the switch on its new Office Web Apps last Thursday, offering a partial technical preview to a limited set of beta testers and invited guests. I’ve had a couple days to work with the new web-based apps, which are both more and less than I expected. Here’s a hands-on report.
Let’s be clear right up front: These are not replacements for the full-fledged Office programs. They are, to use Microsoft’s carefully chosen phrasing, “streamlined versions” of four programs in the full Office suite. Currently, Excel and PowerPoint have the most developed feature sets, allowing users to create new workbooks and presentations, edit existing ones, and share web-based files with other users over the internet. Word offers the ability to open and view documents, but not to edit them or to create new ones. OneNote notebooks, which will be part of the final release, are not supported in any way in this preview.
And while the Office Web Apps are being developed along the same general timeline as the full Office 2010 suite, the publicly available technical previews for Office Web Apps and for Office 2010 are not in sync today. As a result, I made sure to perform tests using both Office 2007 SP2 and Office 2010.
Ultimately, you’ll be able to use Office Web Apps in any of three different configurations, only one of which is available for testing today.
- Corporate customers who have a SharePoint server and Volume License editions of Microsoft Office will be able to create, open, edit, share, and save documents on a server that is under their control. That’s a huge benefit for companies that are (justifiably) nervous about the idea of putting sensitive internal information on servers not under their own control. This option is not available for testing using the current preview release.
- Business customers who pay for SharePoint access via hosted accounts at Microsoft Online Services will also have access to Office Web Apps. Although my Windows 7 Inside Out team has a compatible SharePoint account on that service, the web apps preview isn’t available yet (and probably won’t be until sometime after final release).
- The general public will be able to access the Office Web Apps via a free, ad-supported interface that works in conjunction with Windows Live SkyDrive. This is Microsoft’s online storage service that offers 25 GB of free storage in an ad-supported environment. Files can be stored privately, shared with other individuals, or made public. SkeDrive allows the file owner to assign read or edit permissions. This is the option I tested for this post.
Compared to the desktop versions, the Office Web Apps are most definitely streamlined. An uncharitable observer might even call them crippled. What works? what’s missing? I’ve assembled a screenshot gallery to help you see for yourself. For highlights, click to the next page:
Are Office Web apps good enough to replace desktop programs? –>
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Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 09/21/09
