Office Web Applications First Look

Posted By: dtzar | Sep 17th, 2009 @ 2:30 PM | 47,525 Views | 14 Comments
With the launch of the Office Web application Technical Preview, Chris Bryant (Director for Office) gives us a first look at the details of the new free Office web applications and tells us the angle as compared to other similar applications like Google Docs.  We get to see a demo of the Excel Web App, Powerpoint Web App, Word Web App, and the sharing capabilities. After the demo, Developers get some insight into what you can do with the Office Web apps.

To sign up for the beta version of Office Web Apps, visit http://www.microsoft.com/Office2010

Learn more about Office Web Apps by visiting their Blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/officewebapps
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#Sep 17th, 2009 @ 3:39 PM
Ian2
Ian2
Proud to geek ..

Cool, but whats going on in the cloud right now highlights the need for decent connection speeds - we need to speed up the infrastructure,   I want my internet supply to be like my electricity, gas and water supplies - plentiful and cheap!

#Sep 17th, 2009 @ 5:23 PM
Charles
Charles
Welcome Change

Network latency is a physics problem that's rather hard to solve... This is the fundamental problem with the whole Thin Client mentality. Moving everything to the cloud is just not practical. See, there is no cloud when the router fails, when the server goes down, when undersea construction in the Pacific ocean severs a main Internet artery....

 

Also, we haven't solved the general data synchronization problem; not by a long shot.

 

Just saying...

 

C

 

EDIT: Office Web Apps are really coming along! Thanks for posting this, David.

#Sep 17th, 2009 @ 6:37 PM
uridotchi
uridotchi

This is really cool, thanks for the video.  I have 2 questions to ask,

 

1.  Where do I sign up for the Technical Preview?  I already have a SkyDrive account but can't seem to find any links to it.

2.  Are any of the Office Apps (specifically Word and Excel) are available as components that can be placed on a web page?  I ask this specifically to find out if we can integrate Office Web apps into our corporate web applications.

 

Cheers!

#Sep 18th, 2009 @ 3:15 AM
wisnia
wisnia
Tomasz Wisniewski

Unfortunately I didn’t get an invite yet Sad

But after watching the video two things come to my mind:

 

1. It would be really cool if the apps where also integrated into Live Mesh. For example you have two computers which synchronize a folder between each other and also with Live Desktop. Then you could go to the Live Desktop, make some changes and all the computers synchronized with that folder would get the new versions of the document.

 

2. When using the search feature online, like with the price example. When you click on an element in the left pane, the occurrence of it in the document should be centered in the browser window and not be on the bottom, it makes your eyes travel to much.

 

Well… waiting for my invite now Big Smile

#Sep 18th, 2009 @ 7:03 AM
Irakli_Lomidze
Irakli_Lomidze

1) IDEA is grate but

    Word Preview Very Slow Performace

    Can't View at all some documents, I get error message and offers me to open in desktop applicatio

Please give more attantion for deveopers, allow us to emebed document viewers/Editors in our application.  without sharepoint.

 

 

 

#Sep 18th, 2009 @ 8:53 AM
ivan_
ivan_
g

It is nice, but I didn't see invitation in my sky drive account. Sad

 

And also it seems that it would be a better experience if web apps would be parts of Live Mesh Web Desktop.

#Sep 18th, 2009 @ 8:57 AM
ivan_
ivan_
g

Irakli_Lomidze, you right it would be nice to have it like a service, where if somebody is browsing docs on my web site, then I could show a preview for example using Office Web Apps as a service.

 

#Sep 18th, 2009 @ 9:32 AM
kip
kip

On getting in to the preview: remember that you need a skydrive folder populated with at least one Office document or you won't see anything.  Once you have a folder with a document in it, open the folder and you should see a banner inviting you in (that is, if you are in the Tech Preview and/or have been invited into Office Web Apps).

#Sep 18th, 2009 @ 6:44 PM
staceyw
staceyw
Before C# there was darkness...

This is timely.  I have spent last week doing a team site in Google Sites and Google Docs.  I really did not think I could take it as far as I did. Guess I underestimated google.  First time user and I must say, they did a pretty good job so far.  On the plus side, the integration, ease of use, price, and gadgets (some just don't work) are really nice.  As you say, on the downside is the format loss going from Word to a g-doc and visa-versa. Few other bugs and basic needs like sharing a G-Docs folder in a Site is not possible yet so you have to add manual links to your docs in a page (pain).  And the editors are so-so, but functional.  All and all, you can craft together a site very quickly with most of the functionality you need if you get creative.  So I would say the editors are very important, but only *half the story.  The other half is the colab and live sharing of documents and a UX to surface those documents via something like Google Sites.  I understand Sharepoint is ms's answer, but where is the online story like google?

 

I think ms has an opportunity here they are not using.  For example, take a google chart gadget.  The data queries exposed to dev should be linq queries.  The source could then be any data source (rest, xml, csv, static) and the projection is what the chart requires.  Being able to code a gadget in c# would be too cool so I guess we are talking SL gadgets.  Other gadgets could work the same way.  Also, would there be a way to share via email address only?  Not require a Live id or other?  Inviting people to a site is a pain even for something as simple as telling them to get a gmail id or live id - if they don't already have one.

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