Microsoft (MSFT) has been hard at work competing with its own missteps recently, it seems. Take Microsoft Office: An oft-heard complaint is that Redmond needs to offer a free alternative to Google Docs.
Indeed. Google Docs is free, while the cheapest version of Office is $100/year. What most people don't realize is that Microsoft has offered a full-featured, completely free online version of Office for over a year.
Why is this such a secret? In part, because Microsoft called it Office Web Apps, an ugly and confusing name if there ever was one. Also, it was only available from within the Web interface for SkyDrive (now called OneDrive).
It's still there. Just go to OneDrive and click the Create dropdown at the top of the page to see options for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. But recently, Microsoft mercifully revamped the suite in a way that makes it easier to use and telegraphs its existence to a much broader audience.
For starters, Microsoft has rebranded Office Web Apps as Office Online, a very logical and self-explanatory name that the service should have had from day one. (Perhaps the holdup was that Microsoft referred to its Office Website as Office Online.) Full story...
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Indeed. Google Docs is free, while the cheapest version of Office is $100/year. What most people don't realize is that Microsoft has offered a full-featured, completely free online version of Office for over a year.
Why is this such a secret? In part, because Microsoft called it Office Web Apps, an ugly and confusing name if there ever was one. Also, it was only available from within the Web interface for SkyDrive (now called OneDrive).
It's still there. Just go to OneDrive and click the Create dropdown at the top of the page to see options for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. But recently, Microsoft mercifully revamped the suite in a way that makes it easier to use and telegraphs its existence to a much broader audience.
For starters, Microsoft has rebranded Office Web Apps as Office Online, a very logical and self-explanatory name that the service should have had from day one. (Perhaps the holdup was that Microsoft referred to its Office Website as Office Online.) Full story...
Related posts:
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