Ron Schenone

Microsoft Office Live – Is It Worth Trying? I Believe It Is

Posted by on Jun 18, 2010 | 2 Comments

Microsoft Office Live – Give It A Try And See What You Think

Back on June 7, 2010, Microsoft opened its Office Live site, with what I believe was little fanfare. Knowing that its new Office 2010 products were about to hit the street, it seems that Microsoft Office Live was an afterthought. Let’s face facts. The only reason why Microsoft would even consider offering any Office products online for free was to try and compete with Google Docs.

I have used Google Docs online and found the software easy to use. With this in mind, I gave Microsoft Office Live a try and here are my thoughts. If you have used Microsoft Word, Excel, OneNote, or PowerPoint before, the software online will be very familiar to you. The first thing you will notice is that the online software is not as feature rich as the installed Microsoft Office software, but it offers enough features for most casual users of Office.

If you are unsure how to start, I suggest going to the link ‘Windows Live Blog…’ below. You will find information on using Windows Live as well as information on how to sign up for an account and also on how to upload your files. This feature requires Silverlight, which is a separate download and must be installed to take advantage of the upload feature. In addition you will need a Windows Live account or a MSN account to access the Windows Live site.

Once you go through all of the hoops, you will be able to take advantage of what Microsoft has to offer and will be able to store your stuff on its servers, aka cloud. The current limitation is that the free account is only for 5GB of storage.

If you have tried Microsoft Office Live, let us know what you think. If you have used both Google Docs and Microsoft Office Live, which do you prefer?

Comments welcome.

Office Live Skydrive is here and is free to use.

Windows Live Blog with additional information is here.

  • http://social-blend.com SilentJay74

    Hey Chris,
    So I gave Office Live a day in court, and truthfully it’s not bad. It is a lighter version then what Office Pro users are used to. But for standard application it’s fine. What is cool is you can store the docs on your Skydrive (which has a decent 25GB of storage) and access them anywhere. Yes, you can also store Google Docs, but I have found it easy to import excel spreadsheets from my pc to my Skydrive and open them with Office live, and do some low end editing.
    I think it would be a great application for High School Students. Let’s face it, just like Google Docs you can also share the documents. So if a kid had a book report due, it is easy enough for him to use Office Live and either download and submit or e-mail it to his teacher. Not a lot of educational systems use Google docs, most I know of use Office, so I think it is a step in the right direction for MS.
    If both of them could be the bigger man (Google and Microsoft) it would be nice to see some cross platforming, but we both know we have a better chance of pulling teeth from a alligator before that would happen.

  • Ryan

    I still use OpenOffice.org. Indiana state law requires that all government agencies accept ODF. Although most of them don’t understand that.

    I am glad that Office 2010 actually supports ODF to some extent so that I no longer have to cite the statute when sending in documents to the DMV. :P