Microsoft Office To Launch For Free On Web

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Microsoft is continuing to war with Google for internet dominance as it reveals the next version of its Office software will be available for free online.

Office 2010 will feature free and lightweight versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote, Microsoft revealed at a developer conference.

It is a direct challenge to Google's Docs range of productivity tools, launched three years ago.

Microsoft is also planning to allow users to co-author documents in real time - a similar move to Google's upcoming product Wave, the successor to Google Docs.

Office 2010, likely to be released early next year, is just the latest move in an ongoing battle between the two firms.

Last week, Google announced plans to create an open-source operating system to directly rival Microsoft Windows.

The software, called Chrome OS, will run directly from a computer's internet connection and will be totally integrated with Google's wide range of web services.

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[Lite]

Office 2010: Tech Preview now, free Web apps in August

At this year's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), Microsoft announced that Office 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Visio 2010, and Project 2010 have reached the Technical Preview stage. As announced in May, Microsoft is giving tens of thousands of people the opportunity to test Office and Visio. All WPC attendees (cost of entry is $2,000) will receive invitations to participate in the Technical Preview program, as will hand-picked testers.

Microsoft acknowledged that the reason Office 2010 is not ready for a public release is that this release is not yet feature complete and is solely being made available to garner feedback for the engineering team.

In addition, Microsoft announced that the Web versions of its applications will be available in several flavors, including a free, ad-supported version.

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[Lite]

Microsoft spills the beans on Office 2010

Microsoft has released a technical preview of its next version of Office and revealed that web-based versions of key applications will be available at no cost to subscribers of Windows Live services.

The software giant announced the availability of a technical preview release of Office 2010 for select customers and partners at its Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans.

Microsoft also detailed new features of Office 2010, and revealed that the suite will come in fewer editions than Office 2007.

However, perhaps the most significant part of the announcement was that web-based versions of the Office applications will be available via Windows Live once the suite ships, sometime in the first half of 2010.

"Our goal with Office 2010 is to deliver the best productivity experience across the PC, phone and browser, to enable customers to work anywhere and to work better together," said Chris Adams, Office Client product manager at Microsoft UK.

"We talked to customers about their needs, and found great demand to fit in with the more flexible ways people now work, such as telecommuting. So, in addition to the rich client, we're making Office available via the web and improving the mobile experience."

Although Adams said that Microsoft has not yet finalised its business model for the Office Web Applications, he confirmed that browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote will be available "ultimately for free to over 400 million consumers over Windows Live", and also as part of its subscription-based online productivity services for business customers.

The web-based applications, which are lightweight versions of the full Office tools, are not included in the technical preview released today, but are expected to be available for testing sometime in August, according to Adams.

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