Office Live Offers Simple Collaboration, Applications

Office Live is a major component of Microsoft’s push toward Web-based services that supplement its client and server product lines. The service will also boost audiences for its Internet advertising services and compete with Web-based applications from Intuit and Google, among others. It offers partners a new business opportunity: creating and customizing Office Live sites and applications. However, Microsoft will need to find a way to offer competitive hosted services without cannibalizing its other product lines, because some organizations may find Office Live to be a substitute for other more expensive Microsoft products, such as Windows Server and SharePoint Server.

Office Live is now available to customers in the United States and is available as a beta for customers in France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

Components of Office Live

The “Office” in Office Live suggests that the product offers Web-based versions of Microsoft Office applications, such as Word or Excel, along the lines of products such as Google Docs & Spreadsheet.