MS Office online - FREE!!!!

[sassie05]

http://bigtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/07/13/microsoft-office-to-go-online-for-free/

Interesting at the least.

[halovivek]

Wonderful. Hope they are also moving towards the Cloud computing?

[Paul Komski]

Wonderful. Hope they are also moving towards the Cloud computing?

It is cloud computing (http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1315442) and also almost certainly a direct, perhaps earlier than intended, answer to the already existing Google Docs.

MS has long been aware of and planning for a more Web-centric world of computing - in large part that has been what their development of .NET based software has all been about.

It remains to be seen where this will all shake out but bear in mind that even if documents prepared "in the cloud" are downloaded to one's PC that they will exist in the cloud for a finite time and that even for the Cloud based MS Office Suite you wont, yet anyway, have full integrated functionality such as mail merge and macros and ...

Certainly this web-based approach to access, manipuation and storage on line is going to increase but the full implications of security, privacy, BACKUP, the costs for a range of direct or indirectly related services and any associated advertising "annoyances" will only eventually become apparent.

The cloud can also only really be truly functional where good broadband is the norm and available 24/7 - particularly if it is going to involve large file movement or storage of media files such as pics, music and video. Some might say that YouTube and its ilk are already part of the cloud.

If however you have a spreadsheet or document you don't have security worries about and want to share then it can be created on line with such web applications and made available to individuals or the world at large. Another way to look at it is the formation of an elaborate blog. How wonderful it will be is yet to be determined.

[Variable]

Wonderful. Hope they are also moving towards the Cloud computing?

Define cloud computing as it relates to MS.

[Paul Komski]

Define cloud computing as it relates to MS.
Cloud Computing with Software + Services (http://edge.technet.com/Media/TechNet-Event-Content-Cloud-Computing-with-Software--Services-1-of-3/)

[Variable]

:) I know what it is, I was being a bit rhetorical. I am wondering why he thinks it is related to "Cloud computing" and is a good thing. Cloud computing means different things to different people. It is not a thing. It is an ambiguous term thrown around like a Zen mantra at a New Age convention.

[classicsoftware]

It is without a doubt the dumbest idea in the history of computing. What right minded business is going to put there stuff in the cloud? It's hard enough to lock down the server in your building.

This is pie in the sky stuff. What happens if your cloud vendor gets hacked into? Who is responsible? You or the vendor or both? This is just some mumbo jumbo cooked up Goggle in their effort to control everything ever written.

[Paul Komski]

It is without a doubt the dumbest idea in the history of computing. What right minded business is going to put there stuff in the cloud?
There are horses for courses and, of course, it is not a place to put sensitive or private information. But it really is only an extension of blogging and social interaction sites - but for documents.

I have just tried out both the Google and the MS current offerings and it is only by using this stuff that's its uses will become apparent. My first shared document relates to the two different "on line applications" and at the moment Google is the winner as far as I am concerned.

I don't see that the above shared document is any security risk for me but the baddies out there will obviously try to exploit any new technology or application of the same.

The email to my sharers had the following text and I'm pretty sure the link should work for anyone anywhere. Feedback please if it doesn't open up for anyone here.

I've shared a document with you called "Copy of HI":
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg9xknx2_1hp2jkpg9&invite=1422654629

It's not an attachment -- it's stored online at Google Docs. To open this document, just click the link above.
---

go to it

Unlike posting to a forum I (or any shared collaborators) retain control over its content or the fact that it remains published or accessible at all.

[awaj]

I see use for college students. A professor could put something online and expect the college students to get to it with less worry about compatibility issues. at least I think with out compatibility issues, I don't have anyway to test that...

[Variable]

But it really is only an extension of blogging and social interaction sites - but for documents.

That is one form of cloud computing, Software as a Service, web based applications. Hardly a new paradigm SaaS, but you would think it is with all the "...and now for something completely different!" media jibbering.

I now impersonate a "cloud computing" neophyte first learning of Cloud Computing in a meeting.......be aware I do not act professionally.

...enter Wild eyed, chai drinking, IT sales guy....

"You mean I can access software remotely via a browser and store my files on a remote server? That is incredible! I can do all my work from my iPhone! Think how much time, money and electricity we will save. We could reduce our IT staff, our growth is limitless, soon... WE SHALL RULE THE WORLD!

...Shakes his head up and down like a bobble head.

"We all need to get involved in this, it is bigger than the Podcasting revolution."

...Beleaguered Sys Admin, blinks slowly

But.... why would we spend all the money on security and backup infrastructure, not to mention our compliance audits, if we are going to move our data to a "Cloud Vendor."

Wild eyed, chai drinking, IT sales guy....

.."EXACTLY!"

[Paul Komski]

Once upon a time nearly all computing was done on main frames. Resources were allocated to workstations from which, during the allocated session time, the computing power was accessed either raw or as a thin client accessing various operating systems and applications. Networking distant mainframes was a very slow process at that time; slow baud rate modem dial-up in the main.

Then there was the era of personal computers and the growth of the internet along with increasingly cheap data storage, increasingly fantastic computing power and increasingly fast transfer of data. It is these features that allow the ushering in of cloud computing (for want of a better name or however one wants to define it).

In a way it is not unlike a return to the main frame days when the power of "something distant" can be used to do all the work and, if wanted, to also store prodigious amounts of data. Indeed it is not dissimilar to accessing the remote desktop of a powerful computer from (and almost by definition) a thin client.

Security and backup and all that sort of stuff is of course paramount if the data involved requires it - but that is not unsurmountable or necessarily any less secure than the use of a corporate LAN being accessed in all sorts of ways.

It is too early to be utterly negative about how this will shake out or indeed to know how and what will be successful but you can be quite sure that the likes of Google and Microsoft did not expend hugemungous amounts of time, effort and money in these areas if they did not see a meaningful future for it.

[sassie05]

...the likes of Google and Microsoft did not expend hugemungous amounts of time, effort and money in these areas if they did not see a meaningful future for it.
Great observation. Follow the money.