Microsoft Renovates Office Suite as a Web Service 391
foobsr writes "According to an article in EcommerceTimes, Microsoft is trying to migrate Office from a product to an online service with a focus on automating collaborative work. Quote: 'Making collaboration faster, easier and more efficient will be the next revolution in worker productivity, and we want to be in the forefront,' said Peter Rinearson, vice president for new business development in Microsoft's information worker group"."
Much needed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Much needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Much needed (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if it's a pure web service, why do you assume that you are required to use Microsoft's server? Ever hear of an intranet where you run your own web apps?
Re:Much needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Because this is Microsoft we're talking about and they're not likely to write a web service that runs on something other than IIS.
Re:Much needed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Much needed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Much needed (Score:3, Insightful)
They've also proven Microsoft web != portable (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has nasty habit they have of creating so-called "websites" that don't follow standards and won't run on anything but Windows, where they use the same entry points and callbacks that cause security problems for the native code. If I still have to use a Microsoft "browser", it does nothing for collaboration. In fact it makes the situations worse as you won't be able to use anything like Crossover anymore.
If I want a collaborative online environment, I use a webserver and CSS. Why would I want to go anywhere near a proprietary lock-in format just to share content? Why not WebDAV? ssh-ftp with a file manager hook ala Gnome? CVS?
My third concern is standalone operation. Just how in the world am I to do editing at a cabin, while travelling, or otherwise unable to connect at any kind of useful speed?
Not that it really matters, I guess, as I use Open Office for pretty much everything except Excel. They did do a nice job on the spreadsheet, and too many sheets have to use non-portable macros.
Eventually maybe Microsoft will clue in that "service model" does not mean the same thing as the old mainframe style "software rental." It's not a cash cow to keep sucking people's wallets, it's a way of providing flexible updates and maintenance as ongoing services instead of oft-delayed "service packs" or patches.
Besides, what makes Microsoft think I'd even think about letting their servers manage my document data? That stays right here in my managed environment where I know it's backed up and safe, thank-you-very-much!
Re:Why not crossover? (Score:3)
Because you can bet that Microsoft will be putting in a few hooks to do an online check to verify your OS and system license. They already hate Crossover, and would likely do just about anything to have them shut down.
They did the same thing to other products and companies, tweaking code so it wouldn't run on OS/2, or on other versions of DOS, or link with other compilers, or...
Their whole model is based on lock-in, not competition over quality, service, reliability, or price. Online services give th
Business Customers (Score:3, Insightful)
Problem is home users wont get that luxury, and will have to start renting their office suite, if they are going to stick with a Microsoft based suite.
But we all knew this day was coming so its no surprise. They will also move their OS to that same model, if they can find a way.
Re:Much needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Some things don't matter, and this type of office software system will just magnify the productivity sucking power of "too many cooks in the kitchen" - or however it goes. You know what I mean and for this purpose, that's good enough.
Re:Much needed (Score:4, Insightful)
The old saying "many hands make short work" (at least I think that's how it goes), doesn't apply at any sort of "office" level.
I'm one of those people who HATES staff meetings with a passion. They're nothing but soapboxes for the type of people who like to hear themselves talk while everyone else yawns for hours. The best indication of a hard worker is those who keep their mouths SHUT at a staff meeting.
Give me a clear email outlining the tasks I need to accomplish and soliciting my opinions on areas that require them.
Then leave me alone to do my work. Thankyouverymuch.
Re:Much needed (Score:5, Interesting)
1) remove all chairs from the room
2) no snacks, water, coffee or anything else (and forbid people from bringing them in)
3) schedule all meetings at 4:30pm. Anyone who talks after 5:00pm has to pay overtime to everyone out of their own salary
4) each person can have 2 minutes to talk. Any time over that costs them $5/minute/person in attendance
5) each person can have 3 slides. Any slides over that costs $5/slide/person in attendance
Re:Much needed (Score:4, Insightful)
Ever thought that people that dislike meetings might not be entirely right after all...
Best way to kill a project is not loosing few hours in a metting but not knowing what other people are up to and loosing a global view of the goals.
In layman terms:
"Why did you modify that interface? Why didn't you tell me?" etc etc
Re:Much needed (Score:5, Funny)
Now, instead of accomplishing things, workers can have interminable interactive discussions over the most incredible minutia with their bosses.
If you thought clippy was annoying, just wait until MS Office allows your boss to pop up in a little window on the screen and interrupt whenever you're in the middle of something.
Hello, I see you're (Score:3, Funny)
Collaboration is sorely needed (Score:3, Interesting)
Offering Office as web services is a means to an end, and that end is collaboration. Deploying it as a web service on the Internet or on an intranet server will be a challenge, and we'll see how it works for Microsoft.
Collaboration is sorely needed even on the most basic things. It's not just for "time wasters" or beaurocrats. Even if I just want to document an important process or how some critical service was installed, it's seems like it's a herculean effort to publish and maintain such documents, a
Re:Much needed (Score:2, Informative)
I see this as them selling you your own server. The advantages are the server holds the applications, kind of like webmail. It also centralizes and tracks the documents and changes.
The advantage to MS is that you have to run these hefty servers and buy CALs from them. They are already trying to move that way with the sharepoint services.
I still think they will have a full featured version that is just like todays version of Office. I dont think they will be able to do ev
Re:Much needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they're not the target audience. I mean, be serious, every single company who sells an upgrade to software has to face this question. Nothing new here. Current customers may not upgrade. Eventually they'll do something their customers will want and will make the leap. Yay. New customers are exposed to the new features, may find value in them. Double yay.
" it is also about taking Office off of the desktop and putting it on the web where user registration can be more tightly controlled, upgrade paths more easily enforced, etc."
Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anything in the article that suggested that. (I have heard rumors to that effect, tho..) Sounded more like Office talks to other computers running Office and the documents can go back and forth more easily. Frankly, people who are collaborating today are doing what you describe anyway. Emailing
"I don't know if I trust the MS server with that much access to my data."
I doubt MS would store the data. It's probably more like ICQ where MS's server helps you find the client (or maybe it's a server the company sets up...) and the actual transfer is direct. I'm not sure mistrust of MS is any more beneficial to you in that case.
About the web based service you described, personally in some cases I'd prefer that. Office is not my main app anymore as I've recently changed careers. I use Photoshop and Lightwave daily now. Frankly, I'd rather pay n-hundred dollars a year as a web-based subscription service for these two apps. Even if they had to call home once in a while to make sure I'm legit, that's fine by me. The potential advantages here are a.) Always up to date, b.) If they did it right, I could go from machine to machine and still be able to use the software. Eh maybe I'm just daydreaming. I'm so sick of dongles and having to keep install CDs around. I'm sick of version incompabilities. I'm sick of lots of stuff when it comes to software my living is based on.
Consider this, if people subscribed to Office instead of the way it's done now, there'd be no more backward/forward compatibility problems. If MS updates the software, everybody's quickly up to date. Boy that'd be nice.
Recipe for lock-in (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, if MS updates the software, everyone could be instantaneously file-incompatible with OpenOffice or whatever other competitor MS is worried about. If this beast really gets under way, MS could make it impossible for companies to *ever* get their data back and shift to other software.
Fantastically, possibly impossibly difficult... (Score:5, Informative)
Many programs need to work on operating in a collaborative environment.
Do you have any idea how very nearly impossibly difficult this sort of thing is? It makes The Theory of Relativity look like a stroll on the beach.
Indeed, the sorts of problems encountered [when concepts like "TRUE" and "FALSE" cease to have meanings independent of their times and places] bear more than a passing resemblance to The Theory of Relativity.
Think I'm kidding? Try reading the RFC for the Network Time Protocol:
All that NTP seeks to do is get two computers to engage in the most fundamental task of computing: Come to some reasonable agreement as to the time. And yet, the RFC requires just about a PhD in mathematics and about 1000 pages of background reading from old AT&T switching standards just to begin to get an idea of what the heck is going on.Hello, vaporware! (Score:5, Interesting)
But for Microsoft, which is starting to see its growth slow, reinventing that suite of old reliables including Word, Excel and PowerPoint has become nothing less than a key to its future.
Umm.... Yeah. I remember when MS finally decided to get on the Internet bandwagon, and started putting "Internet functionality" in every single one of their applications. Remember how poorly that was implemented, and how little of value they were actually able to add to the various Office apps?
I don't see this as being much different. Buzzwords, ooh-ahh's from the PHBs, but little increased value for the end user. Collaborative PowerPoints? Um... Ok. Isn't that what source code control systems are for, even for binaries? Pure vaporware, baby. I mean look at this:
The new design makes programs like Word, Excel and Outlook e-mail part of collaborative work spaces. In theory, an employee working in Word could tap into all the corporate information on a customer or project.
What? What the heck does that even mean? Sounds like they're dreaming about some sort of uberlayer on top of all Office apps that will let you somehow get information no matter where it's stored. AND do it collaboratively.
*cough*
Righty-o. Believe it when I see it, chappies.
Re:Hello, vaporware! (Score:2)
Re:Hello, vaporware! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hello, vaporware! (Score:5, Informative)
It is significantly easier and more efficient (no need to learn other programs and switch context) for the average office worker if the "source control system" is integrated into the application itself, for example, if you get actions like check-out/check-in/view history right in your File menu.
On the vaporware comment: Office has supported version control features natively since Office XP but has so far always relied on another product (like SharePoint) to implement actual versioning logic, so it is definitely for real. You have also been able to do really useful collaborative things like view other people's changes to the same document etc for a while now.
So this is just another step on the already established path.
Re:Hello, vaporware! (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hello, vaporware! (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hello, vaporware! (Score:2)
i think i remember this... (Score:5, Insightful)
I had a case where a business was going to ditch their business management system (for an insurance sales co) for a 'web based' system. this was just *after* his dsl had been down for a week. I tried to explain that if he was using the web based system and his dsl went down he would not have *any* information available. And he didn't understand/believe me.
And then their are DOS attacks and other problems on the internet that may prevent you from getting to the MS Office web server.... sheesh.
I expect this to crash and burn again.
eric
Re:i think i remember this... (Score:2)
Re:Hello, vaporware! (Score:4, Insightful)
vaporware? only for now. it's the right step. (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, Bill G. recognizes [microsoft.com] that the medium itself is but the vessel. What goes in the vessel is the future. MS wants to sell you the server OS that gives MS content (Office and other apps) to a MS desktop, all bundled nicely together with Longhorn and the ability to ship sandboxed code over the 'net.
Let's not forget the reason we all moved to webapps in th
Re:vaporware? only for now. it's the right step. (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has already totally compromised the security of Windows by uintegrating the desktop with the Internet, now you think integrating the office suite with the Internet is a step forward?
A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again when you know it doesn't work.
Collaborative Powerpoint won't come from Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
...But it's already a reality. For example, I have been working on a project for BMW [stamen.com] that is just that: a freak hybrid between Powerpoint and CVS. It's implemented in Flash on the client side, and backed up with a Linux machine running Apache, PHP and PostgreSQL.
Images and documents are stored on a central webserver. All administrative interaction is mediated through the flas
Re:Hello, vaporware! (Score:5, Informative)
The Internet integration that the latest versions of Office and SharePoint [microsoft.com] have are truly wonderful. You have no idea until you try it. SharePoint is an awesome tool, not just for its version control, but its integration with both the office suite and the windows operating system. Yes, this is a good and bad thing.
Good that you can now just open explorer and expand "My Network Places" and a few other trees and find yourself in your team's document workspace, ready to work with files just like you do on your local disk.
Its good that you can recieve alerts via email whenever documents, tasks, announcements, etc, are added to your team's sharepoint workspace.
Good that you can check out a document, see in a pane in word what other files are relevent to the document, see what tasks have been assigned, see a list of other users in the workspace and have the ability to interact with these users simply by clicking their name and selecting "send email", or "instand message", or "call".
Its good that you can be working on a document in word, ppt, etc, and within seconds publish it to a sharepoint site by selecting shared workspace from the tools menu, from where you can selecting which users should have access to the document worksite and at what privledge levels, assign tasks to users, attach relevent documents and in a few clicks have the document workspace created on your intranet and emails alerting team members that they have been invited without ever touching your browser.
I could go on, but I think your getting the idea...
Its BAD* because its something else MS can integrate into the operating system.
Its BAD* because its another lock in, and their sharepoint site bearly works in mozilla, or any other non-ie browser for that matter.
Its BAD* because its easier to use to your Standard Office Drone (TM) than CVS.
Its BAD* because its going to be so shiney that PHBs are going to want it and only windows server are going to support the server app.
Dont knock it until you try it. What MS has done with Office 2003 is truly a step in the right direction from Office 2000. Office 2002 (Office XP) on the other hand was a stupid speed bump which never should have happened).
BTW: * = "for linux on the desktop, solutions like open office, and the foss community in general", but then again thats nothing new coming from MS.
PS: Competition is a good thing. Feel otherwise, respond.
I hope they don't mean a web service (Score:5, Interesting)
heh (Score:5, Funny)
Yippie--colleagues can add malapropisms to my work (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft is INOVATING again... (Score:3, Insightful)
How lame of Microsoft.
Re:Microsoft is INOVATING again... (Score:5, Funny)
hate to be the one to say it (Score:2)
Oh good! (Score:5, Funny)
Now it will be deleted every 5 minutes and the save-as function won't work. But that's a feature.
Inovation!
we want to be in the forefront (Score:5, Insightful)
And we want you to give Microsoft a copy of all of your important business documents. Who could think that was not a good idea?
Re:we want to be in the forefront (Score:5, Insightful)
And we want you to give Microsoft a copy of all of your important business documents. Who could think that was not a good idea?
"Being an online service" doesn't necessarily mean that Microsoft is hosting it. This is actually geared more towards individual companies setting up internal document management and collaboration servers (like SharePoint), Slashdot summary is simply misleading in that regard.
Re:we want to be in the forefront (Score:3, Informative)
This confusion is a regular, recurring cause of confusion. Historically, it lends a different light on the whole I.E vs. Netscape battle, one that Internet-centric folks often don't see. Netscape was talking about capturing the corporate Intranet market. Their free browsers, plugg
Re:we want to be in the forefront (Score:2)
Quit trolling. If you bothered to read about it, you would discover that being web-based doesn't mean that it's run only on Microsoft's web server. Ever hear of an intranet?
Re:we want to be in the forefront (Score:3, Insightful)
It's like the Java Web Start, only from MS. You open an app, download it (single version to work on, no more multiple versions, all updates happen for everyone at once), run the app locally thanks to sandboxed code via Longhorn, save documents locally (no longer a security threat by giving MS your docs), and MS charges you a nice-and-steady s
Re:we want to be in the forefront (Score:2)
To get people to upgrade their windows license, MS have to build new wizzy features into the OS that give users a compelling reason to upgrade.
Re:we want to be in the forefront (Score:3, Insightful)
Forefront? Hasn't this already been done? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Forefront? Hasn't this already been done? (Score:5, Informative)
I seem to recall there are already web-based office suites available - Hyperoffice comes to mind as one...
Microsoft announced they were going to provide Office through the Internet [com.com] back in 1999 . I think it was called "Microsoft Office Online", but MS seems to have decided to use that name for a simple homepage [microsoft.com] about Office. I actually recall inadvertently running into a web page that was a web-based version of Outlook that ran through Internet Explorer years ago. It was sluggish, using DHTML for the GUI, although it looked identical to the desktop version.
I think Microsoft was doing this as a response to websites like HyperOffice [hyperoffice.com] that were cropping up at the time. I remember these sites were referred to as "Application Service Providers", although the definition of that term seems to have changed. I recall several but the sites don't seem to be up anymore. They were websites that provided a window manager within a browser. One was Desktop.com and another was Blox.com. Yahoo has a list [yahoo.com] of web-based desktop sites. There are some like GraphOn.com [graphon.com] and WorkSpot.com [workspot.com] that allow you to run remote desktops of actual operating systems through the web. WorkSpot seems sluggish, but Linux users might find it interesting to be able to access a Linux desktop through a Java Applet. There is a demo [workspot.net] page that lets you try it out for 10 minutes.
Hybrid (Score:5, Funny)
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Re:Hybrid (Score:5, Funny)
Oh. Sorry. Breath into this paper-bag for a while.
It may be necessary... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Because the next version of Windows, called Longhorn, may not ship until 2007, analysts say, the Office overhaul is needed in the meantime to deliver more Web services technology to the desktop. The new capabilities in the Office system are also needed to lure software developers to create more applications that run on Microsoft products."
If they can't reinvent Office, and their next version of Windows won't be out until 2007, their income streams will dry up and they'll need to tap into their cash reserves, which I'm sure is the last thing they want to do.
A good idea, but hold your horses.... (Score:2, Interesting)
first things first-- (Score:5, Insightful)
Aren't they kind of putting the wagon before the horse? Shouldn't they work on making the product just work correctly when you're by yourself?
Trying to work in Microsoft Word is like trying to build a house of cards during a fucking earthquake.
Re:first things first-- (Score:3, Insightful)
i don't mind clippy jokes, but it's annoying when people continuosly complain about it.
Re:first things first-- (Score:5, Informative)
Not necessarily true. You can turn if off but you can never uninstall it. You can still trigger Clippy if you use certain help functions.
Re:first things first-- (Score:3, Informative)
LOL. Can you point out the part where I said it crashes? I don't recall saying that.
MS Office is foul. It's not a suite. It's a steaming pile of programs that barely work, much less work together.
Ever try to format a 100+ page scientific document in Word? Yeah, didn't think so.
Ever put together a 183-slide powerpoint file, with embedded video and multi-layer imported vector graphics from Autocad or Illustrator? (Hint: It makes Doom 3's system requireme
Re:first things first-- (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever OS their required software runs on. For me, that's gone Windows -> Linux -> Windows. Right now, swtiching back to Linux (if I wanted to) is not an option. Besides which, I've found that a properly maintained XP box crashes as often as a properly maintained Linux box - ie, essentially never.
I think the reason some of us are getting tired of all the unnecessary anti-MS FUD is because the people spreading it keep on harping on about stuff that's not been t
Internet Explorer (Score:4, Interesting)
What are the odds that these applications will run on something besides IE? Is this the real reason Microsoft was talking about making a new version of Internet Explorer?
Or am I completely misinterpreting what they mean by Web services?
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:3, Informative)
There are a few things that won't work in Firebird.
One feature that doesn't work with Firebird is the DHTML-like drop down menu that accompanies the list of messages/calendar/tasks you create in sharepoint; these allow you to edit/delete an item without having to load a separate page to do so. It's a nice feature that sharepoint has included.
Also, there are modules that you can add to sharepoint wh
This could be a mixed blessing... (Score:2, Insightful)
Subscription based (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Subscription based (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh well let them charge via subscriptions, thats the best way for them to dig their own graves.
Re:Subscription based (Score:2, Insightful)
Web services are the new application framework. (Score:3, Interesting)
As quite a few people have started realising, the web is the platform of the future. There will always be room for locally run 3d graphics apps/games, but the web just makes sense for business apps.
Joel on Software has a good article here [joelonsoftware.com].
Since the win32 API is meaning less and less, now is open sources chance to win the API wars :) I'd love to see a mozilla based explorer.exe replacement. Easily customised, easy to lock down for sysadmins, open source, cross platform. It would make migrating from windows to linux be painless, as the interface would be the same. You could transition incrementally. If you still need office, run windows for a while with the replacement shell. Then, as people get comfortable with the new environment, move them to wine or open office.
I can think of heaps of reasons to switch to a shell i've got full control of. Security being a major one. XUL apps too; you could quickly whip up an app in XUL + javascript which would do all your database transactions. What companies don't have a database of some sort?
Let me get this straight (Score:5, Insightful)
What it really means (Score:5, Insightful)
What I took home from this was the notion that MS wanted to migrate everything they do to web services... why?
They claim it's because all updates will happen automatically and be transparant to the user.
My theory is that it's really because it gives them total control over what you can do. You will never own anything. Just rent the service. You will always be trapped in the "pay your MS tax or you can't even open your own documents" nightmare. What a terrible plan for the users.
Re:What it really means (Score:3, Interesting)
But what do you do if when you quit paying your "Word service tax" you can no longer open any of your existing documents?
Farfetched? Perhaps, but keep in mind that it would be totally possible with a web based service model, and don't forget the DRM they are already putting in Office documents. Lose the ability to decode the document and you can't u
This won't work... (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to leverage Office into other roles is not going to work. Yes, some people will make use of a web service feature but it will go virtually ignored by all but that tiny fraction that tries out everything new Office paradigm because Microsoft tells them that it's the best thing since sliced bread.
Office users get what they want out of Office right now. They're happy sharing documents by email and other means. So why would they and their organisations throw all that away and take the time, effort and money to implement a web services-orientated approach? Who wants to explain to the CEO that he's got to stop asking people to email him documents and start asking them to publish them, and that he's got to do the same with his own output too? Who wants to retrain all their end-users to this new way of thinking?
Microsoft has a real problem right now with its Office suite and it knows it. It's not that Office doesn't work, it's that it works too damn well: what virtually every Office user wants to do document-wise has been possible for quite some time now.
There's very little that Microsoft can do to the individual applications to improve them by delivering new features with tangible benefits, and certainly the applications in Office XP weren't significantly better than those in Office 2000, so it's obsessed with "improving" Office by trying to manage how people work. This kind of improvement might deliver results in Microsoft's labs but in the real world, where people are resistant to change and have a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude, it's doomed to failure.
Re:This won't work... (Score:2)
Ah yes, the holy grail of software development... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see the benefit to this for anyone but Microsoft. I don't think the Internet could handle 250 million people 'streaming' office. Which means something's gonna get installed, and it's gonna be just as much a pain to fix when it breaks as the current office. Oh well, maybe crap like this will encourage openoffice.
Off topic, but I've notice a funny trend in office suites. I'm seeing more and more people running openoffice because their computer got laid waste by a virus, and they didn't get any CDs from thier OEM (or lost em). Buying office without buying a computer isn't an option for most people, so they're driven to oo.org
Corel already had this (Score:5, Interesting)
I see now that they've dropped in in favor of a stripped down demo download. I'm curious to know why they took it down, as it might be a good reason for Microsoft NOT to run Office as a web service.
Anyone remember this? Anyone know why it went away?
If You Give a Software Pirate A Web Service... (Score:5, Interesting)
Pirate protection. (Score:3, Insightful)
Add in guarenteed revenue stream. Also if MS does this and it succeeds (bad idea or not), then you'll see a rush of other web-based apps.
Throw in the DRM MS has ben working on, and...
Are pirate's days numbered?
more power to Word (Score:5, Insightful)
Adding a full-blown language with OS hooks into Word, responsible for an entire generation of viruses, wasn't enough, let's make Word even more "powerful".
They seem to keep ignoring that these programs (and whatever they may spawn) have the same privileges as the employee, so if the employee "could tap into all the corporate information" then so can Word and Excel and so will the next macro virus using the new "technology".
Yeah (Score:2)
Sounds like FUD to me (Score:2)
Is this something reasonable? Not really. Doable, yes, but I seriously don't think it'd be something that the average user would ev
This again? (Score:2)
If they put put server and client version of their apps for companies to run, that would make sense, but that leaves the home user out of it, so I suppose they'd be stuck with the internet version. How krappy would that be?
DBC$$B
This is great (Score:2)
GREAT move for Microsoft! (Score:4, Insightful)
I feel this is excelent (Score:2)
So are we going to have to install a 2GB ActiveX component to make this work?
I'd also like to note that, that would be in breach of their settlment with the DoJ and illigal as it would forcing the use of one monopoly product for the use of another. In this case IE for Office.
I've found most of my clients feel office is WAY too complicated and slow as is. So anythi
Shhhhh, don't nobody tell MS.... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah its a real good Idea you have there MS..... keep up the good work...
-----
Help promote Linux, support MS insanity.
"Extends" not "Renovates" (Score:5, Insightful)
The company I work for has been using SharePoint for Issue tracking in our software applications for nearly a year. It was way easier to setup and use than bugzilla and several other free alternatives. And the issue tracker is a very secondary feature of SharePoint!
It allows the creation of document libraries that can associate arbitrary metadata with documents. When you save a document from an Office application is can actually be saved directly to the SharePoint document library (you can browse to the web page in the save as dialog and it shows a little html based page right in the mini-explorer and you can save there like a normal file). After clicking save, if the document library has been extended with metadata (by any non-tech-savvy user) you are prompted to enter that data.
You can also create document workspaces which are document libraries that have an associated message board, contacts list, task list and other odds and ends. All of that information appears in a sidebar in any office application which lets you instant message, email, or assign a task to a contact related to the document you are working on. Documents in any type of document library allow for versioning and check-in/out functionality.
InfoPath is probably the coolest Office application when it comes to collaboration. If you fill out an InfoPath form, the xml output can be funneled into a SharePoint document library which can calculate statistics from the documents and sort/organize them for you.
Its only the first version of the Office System that uses this functionality, and we all know it takes Microsoft 3 tries to get anything just right. Luckily, the system works well on the first try, I can't wait for the third attempt!
Improved colour scheme (Score:3, Informative)
Anyone else think.. (Score:2)
1. .NET -- machine-portable pseudocode compiled to native on the fly; "everything Java should have been"
2. XAML -- vector graphics and advanced UI features in a markup language; "everything HTML / DHTML / XHTML should have been"
3. No-touch installs and least privilege environment [microsoft.com]
All of this is infrastructure which Microsoft needs to move to a server-hosted application
Web no longers means internet (Score:5, Insightful)
This is simply the realization of the thin client paradigm. As corporate environments go, it's about time.
And before anyone panics about all those stand alone machines out there (like us developers are all so fond of), there are a bunch of appies out there that are essentially written this way already. VS.NET is web driven. That front end is all xml/html driven. We see it with the MS management console and MSC snappins for it too. This is the sort of thing we're looking at with the future of office.
The front end will be web based. The back end will likely have a few different options and standalone on the local machine I would wager will still be one of them. But at the same time, the back end could be centralized greatly simplifying mangement. I wouldn't be suprised if the next incarnation of Visual Studio can be set up to compile on a central server.
This should in theory simplify development of the Office software and reduce all versions of Office to a single codebase once
Yes by all means! (Score:4, Funny)
Licensing? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll be really curious to see how the licensing will be handled. While this model of "services" may be OK for corporate and home use, I wonder how it will go for educational settings.
Currently many of my students have Office [microsoft.com] on their "home" PCs. They can also use it in the labs, since we have a campus site license.
However, if the software moves to the web and is licensed by campus, will the software's access be limited by (campus) IP address? What happens to the kid that goes home for break and needs to use Word or Excel?
Sure, the campus can add some kind of password system to let the kid access the software via the campus license from home, but now you are adding work to overworked (and underfunded) IT departments.
Yeah, this is going to be interesting to watch.
OK, I'd love to see OpenOffice [openoffice.org] or some other option take off, but our campus is so bound to Word (hell, I get three line memos in a Word doc attached to an email), I can't see the secretarial force even open to considering a platform change to other software.
Just what we need (Score:3, Funny)
Anonimity vs. registration will end MS in places.. (Score:4, Interesting)
There are plenty of us out here that must work in a realm where anonymity and the ability to purchase items with 100% zero strings attached is a first order requirement.
We pay for cash for all hardware and software, and we CAN NOT EVER "register" software because if we did, we'd go to jail. We can get updates from the internet, but its a 1-way street via sneakernet and a lot of shredded CD-Rs.
If/when Microsoft requires access and knowledge and subscriptions to software is the day we'll all switch to Linux and OpenOffice.
What kills me is, like always, instead of looking ahead proactively and seeing the path ahead, they will probably be forced to make a radical change at the end, and we'll be running on Windows 2000 until 2010. (NSA has NOT approved XP for desktop use, even though its being installed all over the place).
A strategy to counter the GPL? (Score:3, Interesting)
So what if MS comes up with a way to turn GPL software into Web-distributed applications which, in some twisted legal sense, they are installing on their computer which you just happen to be using...
good news for the competition (Score:4, Insightful)
When people don't want to worry about the security of their data moving across the 'net (I don't know why, seeing as how Microsoft products are so... ahem... secure... NOT!), or not being able to work when the network is congested or down, they will use something else. Open Office is one alternative (with the added benefit of being free, as in beer)... and for those who want to pay, Word Perfect is still out there...
So Microsoft, knock yourself out. There are other choices. Who knows, maybe after a taste of open source software, people will start using Linux more? ;-)
Web Services?! Faster!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: great idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: great idea (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is probably flame bait.....but..... (Score:2)