Microsoft launches online document sharing

Microsoft today announced the public availability of Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta.

The public beta service is now available free to download in English to extend the scope of its productivity software suite, Microsoft Office, by enabling access to and the sharing of documents online.

Office Live Workspace was first previewed last Autumn as part of Microsoft's Live launch last autumn that introduced its "software-plus-services" vision to the market, which provides a way to save documents online and promotes better collaboration and document workflow management.

"Today's announcement moves us further down the path of bringing a software plus services experience to people at home, work and college," said Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division. "By combining the rich client experience of Microsoft Office with flexible, intuitive service offerings, we're providing seamless computing experiences for our 500 million Office users worldwide."

Microsoft said users could store more than 1,000 Office documents online based on average use. They can also view and comment on documents in the browser as well as create simple lists and notes, as well as share documents by integrating with Microsoft SharedView.

But a number of new Office Live Workspace features, such as an activity panel, email notifications about changes to workspaces or documents, direct URL links and bookmarks; and multi-file upload also accompany today's launch. The vendor also touted new sharing functionality includes an easier user interface and auto-completion of email addresses.

Since its launch last October, Microsoft added that "hundreds of thousands" registered for the free Live Workspaces private beta. The company plans to offer the beta program in more languages for international markets and release a final public version later in the year.

Microsoft originally unveiled a preview of the public beta at CES 2008 in January.

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