Office Online Includes Services

Adding yet another branch to Microsoft’s tangled online strategy, Office Online, the Web site associated with the Office family of products, will offer hosted online services for Office users, including a way to post Outlook calendars to a publicly accessible Web page.

Online, Not “Live”

Office Online received a significant overhaul in late 2006 in preparation for the launch of the Office 2007 family of products. In addition to the product information, online help, and templates that have appeared on Office Online in the past, the site also includes several Web-based services. To post information through these services, users must have the associated Office 2007 applications and must sign up for My Office Online, which requires an e-mail address that’s been registered as a Windows Live ID (previously known as Passport), as well as some basic personal information.

Once registered, users have access to the following services:

Outlook Calendar Sharing Service. Outlook 2007 users can post their calendars in the Internet-standard iCalendar format to a Web site hosted on Office Online, making it accessible to any user with a Web browser and an Internet connection; a Windows Live ID is also required if the owner has restricted access to the calendar. When a user shares his calendar, Outlook automatically creates an e-mail message with the URL of the calendar, which the calendar owner can use to guide others to the shared calendar. Calendar owners can restrict access to recipients of this e-mail message, as long as recipients associate Windows Live IDs with their addresses.