Showing posts with label Office+Live. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Office+Live. Show all posts

Wednesday, 18 February 2009

Work with others the easy way with Office Live Workspace

Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta is your online place to store and share documents. When you have multiple people involved in a project or planning an event, Office Live Workspace makes it easy. You can share documents, coordinate schedules, and manage to-do lists in your own password-protected online workspace. It’s a great way to keep everyone actively involved – whether they’re next door or on the next continent.


Goodbye attachments. Hello sharing.
Avoid worrisome attachments and back-and-forth e-mails by posting documents you want to share in your workspace. Anyone you’ve invited to join has easy access anytime.

No more merging.
In a workspace, everyone works off a single online copy of a document. That saves time and eliminates the confusion that often occurs when you merge multiple copies of the same document.

Password-protected sharing.
Not only is your workspace password-protected, but you control who can actively edit in your workspace and who has view-only privileges.

Want to learn more? Check out our three scenarios to see how people like you are using Office Live Workspace – and then watch our how-to video.

Managing a project

Managing a projectPreparing an annual report, building a Web site, or forming a committee? With Office Live Workspace, organizing a project is a snap.



Post a project schedule.
Give everyone on the team an easy way to check progress and provide their own updates.

Share a budget spreadsheet.
When everyone has access to the numbers, you reduce the possibility of budget overruns.

Keep project documents in one place.
No more asking around for a copy of the meeting minutes or latest PowerPoint presentation.

Make it easy to participate.
All anyone needs to access your project’s workspace is a PC, an Internet connection and a password.

Organizing a study group

Organizing a study groupWorking on a group assignment for class? Studying together for midterms? Learning a language with your travel buddies? See how efficient organizing a study group can be with Office Live Workspace.


Post a meeting calendar.
There’s no confusion about when or where the next meeting is when your calendar is available online.

Assign tasks.
Make sure everyone knows exactly what their assignment is and when it’s due.

Work off a single document.
Whether you’re writing a paper or building a reading list, everyone can make changes to a single copy posted online – no need to waste time merging multiple documents.

Control access.
You decide who can view and edit each document.

Planning an event

Planning an eventGot a wedding or family reunion coming up? Is your company hosting a conference or trade show? See how organized event planning can be with Office Live Workspace.


Share your to-do list.
Giving everyone a clear picture of what needs to be done, and when, helps ensure a successful event.

Track your guest list.
Keep a running tally of RSVPs and share it with those responsible for reminders or updates.

Keep event information in one place.
Save time and avoid confusion by keeping all event documents – from your budget to the invitation design – in one place where those with permission can access them.

Make a day-of-event schedule.
Your event will run more smoothly when everyone knows the schedule in advance.

Office Live, SharePoint for everyone


The Office Live Workspace Beta gives you the ability to create collaboration workspaces. You don't have MOSS 2007 DM yet, but it provides basic collaboration from WSS 2 and WSS 3 is a nice user friendly UI.



And the killer app is, it connects to Office 2003 and 2007. You can edit your word documents in word on your computer and manage them in the Cloud.



Saving still has some security problems. If y0u have ever run SharePoint without Active Directory you will be familiar with what Security is like in Office Live. I don't know if people will find this confusing. Microsoft needs to improve Cloud Security, the process is much more seamless in Google Docs.



Having to log-in via Office when you are already logged in via Office Live in a browser is a problem that Microsoft, who owns Windows anyways needs to get around. The problem here is key security, if the browser could launch an app that could then contact a web service it better be secured very well.

http://workspace.office.live.com/
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This changes everything: Office Live Workspaces


Office Live Workspaces could change the entire field of the Cloud. Office Live now brings SharePoint functions to everyone everywhere, allow every Windows / Office based user to collaborate and manage content in the Cloud. It allow rapid network formation globally to harvest the benefits of the Web and Cloud.

Microsoft has hit a real home run here, using the most popular SharePoint features to make a usable Cloud application, something Google Docs very failed at.



The cost of using a Office Live over Google Docs cloud is that you are stuck in a Microsoft world. I can't use Windows Live on my Linux machines and this alone is keeping me on Google Docs. My little Umbuntu Laptop is just too nice to give up and too slow to run Vista or even XP.

Generally the Cloud has paved my movement off of Microsoft platforms. For the past 4 years since I have been moving to Cloud based information management I have used Google, Yahoo and firms other than Microsoft. Suddenly with Office Live I have a reason to keep my XP machines around.

So IMHO Microsoft has hit a real home run here. Not only have they made a STRONG move to the Cloud that works, but they have also managed to use the Cloud to straighten their brand position. Lets see how it takes off, but I am now ready to put my money that Microsoft has a bright future in the Cloud.

I guess soon I will have to present myself as a SharePoint Office Live Consultant. Cool by me.
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Thursday, 12 February 2009

Office Live vs Google Docs, and the Winner is?

Microsoft Office Live


I have been a long time user of Google Docs keeping my graduate school documents on it for some time.  I think Microsoft has hit a massive home run with Office Live.  The migration of Microsoft in to a web based Live product has been slow and painful, but Live just a better site than Google Docs.  The primary problem is the Live is Microsoft centric still and I can't use it on my Linux machines using Flock browser, but for an XP based machine the integration between Microsoft Office Live and Office 2003 and 2007 makes it a no brainer.  The site is also easier to use and provide more pre-existing business templates.