Recently, when I shared my first impressions of the new Hotmail from Microsoft, I mentioned Office Live and described it as “[s]ort of like GoogleDocs for Microsoft Office documents.” Here at ProfHacker, we’ve written a good bit about GoogleDocs. (See, for example, Amy Cavender’s “Using Google Documents when others need paper” as well as “Getting Started with Google Docs in the Classroom” and “Revisiting Google Docs for Classroom Use” from Julie Meloni.)
In the discussion section of my “first impressions” Hotmail post, commenter mbevaldi rightly took issue with comparing Windows Live to GoogleDocs:
I was under the impression that Windows Live was only useful as cloud storage and sharing (in an upload-download kind of workflow) of documents that still had to be edited using a locally-installed copy of the relevant Office program.
Well, that was true when I wrote the post: you had to have Microsoft Office already installed on your computer to work with the documents. However, things have now changed.
From the Windows Blog we learn that the web apps version of Microsoft Office — which they’ve apparently been testing for some time now — is now open to everyone. With this new “Office Live” you can
- upload existing documents,
- create new documents from scratch,
- edit the documents online, in your browser,
- share the docs with others, and
- collaborate (in real time, if you like) with others in your documents.
In other words, what you’ve been able to do with GoogleDocs you can now do with Office Live, no desktop software required.
Of course, Office Live has only been widely available for a few days, so I don’t have any elaborate review (or instructions) to share. However, if you’re someone like me who has tried to get students and collagues to use GoogleDocs and experienced mixed results, this new offering from Microsoft raises an interesting set of questions:
- Will those confused by GoogleDocs (or just reluctant to learn yet another interface) be attracted to using Office Live?
- Will students now finally start saving documents in the cloud as well as on their local storage media, thus reducing the number of late papers due to document loss or corruption?
- Will online collaboration become more common, and will we see a reduction in documents endlessly emailed back and forth among collaborators?
What do you think?
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6 Responses to Microsoft’s ‘Office Live’ Is Now…Well, Live
raymondmartyrose - June 9, 2010 at 6:49 pm
As one of the beta testers for MS Office Live, and now for MS Office 2010 and a GoogleDocs user I won’t give up the GoogleDocs yet. GoogleDocs is faster and hasn’t crashed with the frequency of the MS product. I can also access GoogleDocs from my Android phone.
peril - June 10, 2010 at 11:01 am
Ray,I would be intersted to know how you would compare Google to MS Live as someone whose been using it for a while.Google Docs is lovely, but the formatting limitations keep it from being a finishing tool. I’ve become used to using it for collaboration but then copying out the final draft into Apple Pages for the pretty-making :) MS Office Live on the other hand, if it is as near a replica of Office as I feel like MS says it is, the formating options might make it more useful.
peril - June 10, 2010 at 11:08 am
hmmm, just signed up. After logging in, my first thought was “Wow, this seems unnecessarily complicated… [sigh]“
yankinlondon - June 10, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Keep in mind that in the Office Live iteration of Excel, for example, the command set is significantly sparser than that which attends the native version. Yes – you may be able to mint spreadsheets out there in Office Live without having to own Excel – but your options will be greatly curtailed as a result.
kphagen - June 11, 2010 at 10:22 am
I would like to comment on this question: Will students now finally start saving documents in the cloud as well as on their local storage media, thus reducing the number of late papers due to document loss or corruption? Regardless of the advantages of saving documents in the cloud, students will turn in late papers. I have considered warning students in my writing class that taking the course will be hazardous to their homes and families. Students in my class routinely report the death of grandparents, parents, spouses, pets, computers, laptops, flash drives, monitors, printers, and internet connections as reasons for late papers.
george_h_williams - June 17, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Thanks for all the comments. I do think the strength of services like this is in the ease with which you can collaborate with others on document creation and editing (without having to email the same document back and forth repeatedly). Do such services provide the exact same set of features as a desktop suite of office tools? Not in my experience, but maybe one day.