Microsoft's SaaS Office Offerings, First Look Today

MS released a technical preview beta today, and the broader world got a good look at what the web version of Office is going to look like. Color me impressed, at least from a look and feel perspective, the apps look very much like their desktop cousins. I have only seen very small previews, but if the apps perform like the desktop cousins, Google is going to have a tough row to hoe. We'll see how this whole thing plays out, it could turn out that the online versions suffer from the complexity and bloat of the desktop versions and that simple really is better. Still though, Enterprise customers will likely flock to the MS solution, if for no other reason than familiarity. It remains to be seen how much MS will attempt to charge and how or wether they will have free versions and if those suck. If Google can spruce up apps, I am still betting on "Free" winning the day. This could turn out to be similar to the ISP wars in that the winner will be whomever can afford to give away the product the longest without going bust. Should be fun !

Check out the Info World coverage for more info

Link : Microsoft Office Heads to the Web