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Microsoft Unveils Browser-Based Office Apps
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Tue Oct 28, 2008 01:46 PM
from the what-took-you-so-long dept.
from the what-took-you-so-long dept.
snydeq writes "Microsoft followed up its Windows Azure unveiling by announcing that it will deliver lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote through the browser, a la Google Apps. Surprisingly, Office Web applications will run in Firefox and Safari, not just Internet Explorer. Far less shocking: You won't get Office Web apps free and clear as you do Google apps. The apps are meant to be an extension to locally installed instances of the next version of Microsoft Office, the same way Outlook Web Access provides access to mail without the fat Outlook client."
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IT: Microsoft Announces Windows Azure, Cloud-Based OS 419 comments
snydeq writes "Microsoft today introduced Windows Azure, its operating system for the cloud. The OS serves as the underlying foundation of the Azure Services Platform to help developers build apps that span from the cloud to the datacenter, to PCs, the Web, and phones. Cloud-based developer capabilities are combined with storage, computational, and network infrastructure services, which are hosted on servers within Microsoft's global data center network."
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Runs on FF/Safair? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Runs on FF/Safair? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Runs on FF/Safair? (Score:4, Insightful)
I kinda doubt Linux will be supported.
> The apps are meant to be an extension to locally installed
> instances of the next version of Microsoft Office,
How its then supposed to run on Linux at all?
Parent
Re:Runs on FF/Safair? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are we accepting Silverlight as a valid system requirement now?
I don't mean that as an anti-Microsoft question, but I don't want to have to install every company's obscure little proprietary plugins to run my apps and access my data. Flash is bad enough, but I draw the line directly behind Flash and won't go any further. In fact, I'm still hoping to boot Flash to the other side of that line, especially since it crashes my browser on a regular basis, but I still seem to be stuck with it.
But regardless of who's developing it, I'm loath to install another proprietary incompatible Flash clone.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm still hoping to boot Flash to the other side of that line, especially since it crashes my browser on a regular basis, but I still seem to be stuck with it.
Install, and lobby in favor of Silverlight then. Silverlight is far more stable/secure/lightweight than flash, and it's 10x easier to develop for. So if it replaces Flash, you're still in the position of having to install a plugin, but at least you'll be done with browser crashes..
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Its untested, Flash has 12 years behind it.
In those 12 years Flash has proven to be buggy and insecure. Developing for Flash (ActionScript) has been a joke so far.
Its not cross platform. Mention Moonlight and I'll hit you. I cannot type 'emerge moonlight' yet ergo its not anywhere near ready.
1. Violence is never the answer.
2. Typing 'emerge moonlight' is your own arbitrary test for being cross-platform -- it doesn't really mean anything.
3. With the recent exception of Flash 9, Flash has a long history of leaving Linux users in the lurch.
And I'd trust Microsoft for security if my IQ was 50 and I didnt care that much.
That's just typical groupthink regarding MS. Read this [cnet.com]. I've seen in the past that people aren't very objective when discussing MS's sec
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So your telling me that Moonlight is ready for action, completely stable and on par with Silverlight?
Oh and whats that I see on Slashdot's front page?
*Another* security flaw allowing remote code execution requiring a out of schedule patch release?
With example code floating around?
Groupthink indeed.
The patch! (Score:3, Interesting)
2. The patch was released before the exploit was available -- that's a win for MS.
Bzzt! [technet.com] Wrong!:
We discovered this vulnerability as part of our research into a limited series of targeted malware attacks against Windows XP systems that we discovered about two weeks ago through our ongoing monitoring.
Microsoft developed the patch in response to targeted attacks. Therefore exploit code was in the wild before the patch. You are right about it dating back to XP, and all prior versions of Windows. Someone, somewhere, has been exploiting this remotely exploitable security hole in highly targeted attacks for an indeterminate number of years. Who knows what valuable proprietary data they've got so far? What corporate secrets were leaked? Every time this happens we get some idiot on here bla
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It may be an arbitrary test, but it's a very good one. If it's not present in the largest and most complete package repository for Linux, it's probably not relevant.
You just called every non-open source piece of code irrelevant.
I realize that might have actually been your intent, but I hope you realize how foolish that sounds.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
MS Gets it right? (Score:5, Interesting)
Positioning it as an extension of office is much more appealing to me than google's broadband-dependent offering. For all the times MS looks completely befuddled by consumer needs, the office team seems to know what it's doing.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, Microsoft knows cloud computing will be a joke. They just see this as an opportunity for large-scale security testing. By tying Office into the web, they'll quickly find most of it's security flaws just like they did with IE.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft knows cloud computing will be a joke.
And on the off chance cloud computing just happens to be popular, Microsoft wants to make sure people keep sending me .doc/docx files.
Re:MS Gets it right? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Positioning it as an extension of office is much more appealing to me than google's broadband-dependent offering.
I suppose it looks appealing to someone who was planning on buying another update to the MS Office suite. As someone who wasn't going to buy it, the Google Apps are serving me and my small business very well.
Seth
Re:MS Gets it right? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:MS Gets it right? (Score:5, Informative)
a) Google Gears. Get it. Now.
b) It'd also take down your email and numerous other systems, and as a Slashdotter I assume you have a tech-oriented business that rather relies on internet connectivity so you'd be largely screwed regardless of how you manage your documents.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
When my internet connection goes down and a customer calls me for an unrelated issue, I can still access all of my files related to the customer on the intranet.
Re:MS Gets it right? (Score:4, Informative)
Google Gears doesn't allow creating new documents in Google Docs in offline mode. No printing or saving either.
Parent
Google Apps Work Offline (Score:2)
Google Apps work without a broadband connection [google.com] too.
Re:MS Gets it right? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The comparison to Outlook Web Access suggest that what they mean is that it will require a special license that is sold alongside with (or, perhaps, on top of) desktop licenses, not a local install; it will probably be no less broadband dependent than Google Apps, it will just require buying one or more desktop Office licenses in order to use.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I see this as Google doing something stupid and utterly useless to 99% of users, and then Microsoft following them and wasting their time also doing something equally stupid and useless.
But oh well. You must be that 1% who doesn't see online word processing as dumb. For you people, yeah, hooray, Microsoft got something right.
Now it's time for network effects. Send us links to your online word processing so that the rest of us will be forced to use it. Then the marketshare will be 2%. The
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Except for putting in Active X controls means that it will not fully function with other browers or OS's, phones, or strict security settings. The point of Web Based Office tools is Near Universal access across systems. If I took Firefox for Linux I want to run the app with full functionality. No Active X nonsense.
but (Score:5, Funny)
will it have Clippy :p
Re:but (Score:5, Funny)
but he'll be in Ajax
so he's cool now
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Why do I never have mod points when I need them. +1 funny :-)
Re:but (Score:5, Funny)
It looks like you're trying to modify a post. Would you like help with that?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
For an example, see The Talking Buddy Search Engine [talkingbuddy.com] (Requires IE for the Agent).
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, and every time he waves at you he refreshes his window and your monthly bandwidth cap gets that much closer.
locally installed? (Score:4, Informative)
Except in order to use Outlook Web Access, I don't need to have a "locally installed instance" of Outlook. I understand where they're going with this, but the example that the author used doesn't seem very apt.
Re: (Score:2)
About the only reason I can see using the "cloud" version over my already locally installed copy would be for collaboration.
But if the cloud version is just an extension of the locally installed version, why not give those capabilities to the locally installed version?
I make use of google apps mainly to quickly and easily share "living" documents. Occasionally I use google apps because the device I'm using doesn't have room to install office and rarely needs those types of programs. If I don't need collabor
Re: (Score:2)
If you watched the keynote demo, they were showing two users collaborating. One was using the normal desktop version of Word. The other was using the web version of Word. So the web versions are meant for situations where you don't have Office installed (just like OWA gives you access to your Exchange account when you don't have Outlook). This also means that two users using the desktop version of Word will be able to collaborate in real-time.
According to the press release [microsoft.com], there will be an ad-funded versio
Re:locally installed? (Score:4, Informative)
You need to have a seat (license or CAL as Microsoft calls them) for Exchange for every client that would connect through OWA.
In most situations, clients need three different licenses:
A license for the desktop operating system (i.e., Windows XP).
A client access license (CAL) for the Windows server. This license allows the client to legally connect to the server over the network. If you are using per server licensing, then you need a separate CAL for every Windows server on your network. If you are using per seat licensing, then you only need one CAL.
An Exchange CAL. This is the license that permits the clients to access the Exchange server. At one time, Exchange clients also required a license to use Microsoft Outlook, but today an Outlook license is included with each Exchange CAL.
The rule is that an Exchange CAL is required for any person or device that is accessing Exchange. This includes access through Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Web Access, Outlook Mobile Access, Exchange ActiveSync, or any other messaging interface.
Parent
web-friendly gui toolkit? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm curious whether they are using a common GUI toolkit for their local and web-based versions of these apps.
I'm beginning to like the idea of being able to write a locally-running app and also make it web-based in one swoop.
I guess MS wouldn't be the only ones going this way. Things like GWT and Google Gears and XULrunner make this quite possible. I'm just wondering if MS is uses similar in-house technology.
Microsoft and Cloud (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
AZURE sky of death, thank you.
But the most important question... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Secondly, will it run under those browsers with the same feature set that it will have under IE? Web access to my company Exchange account technically runs under Firefox. Enough so I can send an email if I really have to. I can assure you that when this is the case I'll be grumbling and cussing the whole time.
Re: (Score:2)
You have to have Office installed locally (Score:2)
Since you have to have Office installed locally I suspect that it involves an ActiveX control with whatever plugins are necessary to wedge it into Safari and Firefox on Windows.
Rudimentary editing is the wind beneath... um... (Score:2)
You can do full web-based previews and rudimentary editing without Office installed locally.
Gee, I don't have a Microsoft Magic Password on my Mac, so I can't thrill myself with the rudimentary editing!
Guess I'll just have to put up with Office X.
OWA is an Exchange feature (Score:4, Informative)
it is part of the Exchange email server, it's not part of the Outlook/Office.
Licensing will Doom Them (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, it may look pretty, but what's the EULA going to be on this hit of the Microsoft crack pipe? The gradual tightening of their EULA's is another reason the company I work for won't entertain budget spent for new Microsoft licenses.
Have you read the silverlight EULA? Since it's job-related I did, and let me tell you it's not pretty.
We're a small business that has purchased Microsoft site licenses over the years. I gotta wonder how long Microsoft can alienate customers like us before it starts affecting their top and bottom lines.
Browser... (Score:3, Funny)
How long... (Score:2)
StarOffice (Score:3, Insightful)
So, basically the same idea we had at Sun years ago (about 10!) with StarPortal?!
Plus ca change.
D.
So.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have been using OO.org in conjunction with the ZOHO/Google Apps plugin to make Google Apps and ZOHO Office an extension to OO.org. ...and even cooler, the ZOHO developer API allows me to use ZOHO as an extension of my other web apps. So, what are the advantages of using this with MS Office?
In my quest for cross-platform capabilities, I have been using apps that generally work this way. Most of my word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, PDF (Zoho reader), documents are accessible to me in quite a few ways.
1. OO.org
2. ZOHO Office
3. Google Apps
4. The eyeOS desktop installed on my own web server.
What I would like to see now is the ability to sync them all without OO.org and use one OpenID with all of the services.
Ah, yes... more maneuvering toward subscriptions (Score:5, Insightful)
Here we go again: another attempt to maneuver people toward software subscriptions and changing the perception of software as a tool to an image of software as content... for which people are already accustomed - habituated, in traditional Pavlovian fashion - to forking over cash every month without really analyzing the big picture. (This is one tactic used by manipulative people to concentrate massive amounts of material wealth... toward themselves and away from everyone else. It's totally Darwinian but not very ethical.)
Re: (Score:2)
Is this move uninspired? Yes. Does it have anything to do with national financial ruin? (Which we do not, in fact, have. . . turns out there are still one or two people who think we will get back on the right track eventually.) No. Hyperbole--