I've been testing Office Live Workspace Beta for the last couple of days. My verdict? Office Live Workspace is terrific!
Now that may echo what you've read on other posts on the Web in the last couple of days. But then, I'll venture to say that many people don't really get what Office Live Workspace is all about. Really.
One post I read said something to the tune of Office Live Workspace, the long awaited online version of Microsoft Office.... Stop right there. Workspace is NOT an online version of Microsoft Office. The post's author lamented that you still needed to have Microsoft Office on your desktop. All I can say is read the specs before signing up for the service.
Another post said something like But it doesn't come anywhere near Google's apps..... Again, don't go any further. Workspaces, or Office Live Small Business for that matter, is NOT an online office suite and therefore the often-made comparison with Google Docs and Spreadsheets is essentially meaningless. Comparing Workspace's features with Google Docs and Spreadsheets is as silly as comparing Google Docs and Spreadsheets with Word and Excel. Try writing a book with Google Docs, if you don’t believe me.
(Frankly, the only online word processor that comes anywhere close to Word is Adobe's Buzzword. Of course, you can’t really do an apples-to-apples comparison; Word and Buzzword server entirely different purposes. Still, give Buzzword a shot if you haven't yet. It's nothing short of stunning. It redefines what you can expect from online applications. Its flash-based interface is vastly superior to Google Docs' dinky HTML/CSS based interface.)
Before you start sending me hate-mail, let me clarify that I'm not anti-Google. In fact, I like Docs and Spreadsheets. They are great little tools for quickly jotting down thoughts or figures and I use them often. Rather, my point is that you can't really compare them to Office Live Workspaces as so many people seem to be doing.
So what exactly is Office Live Workspace? It's difficult to summarize what it does in one sentence. If you haven't used SharePoint or have no clue as to what it is, you can think of Office Live as an online database and document repository. The database allows you to create custom lists, which basically are Access-like tables. The document repository is only a storage space for documents. At present, only Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents are supported. A word processor or a spreadsheet to manipulate those documents is NOT built-in.
If you've used SharePoint, you'll have an easier time understanding Workspaces. You can think of Workspace as a custom, lightweight version of SharePoint services. You can create Document or Meeting Workspaces and share them with anyone who has a Windows Live ID. Your workspaces can contain lists or documents. There are three built-in, or pre-provisioned, lists : Task List, Contact List, and Event List. Then there is the generic List. You can customize all lists by adding and manipulating columns just as you can in SharePoint. The Contact List can integrate with Outlook contacts on your desktop. Workspaces has built-in workspace templates for a job search, planning a trip, household to-dos etc. Templates are simply a group of related documents and lists created as a unit. They are customized versions of SharePoint's Meeting and Document Workspaces.
The other SharePoint-based feature of Workspaces is document management. You can store Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents in document repositories. As with SharePoint, you can store several versions a document. And again, like SharePoint, you need Word, Excel, or PowerPoint on your desktop to edit those documents.
Workspaces also has a Wordpad-like basic word processor, Notes. It CAN'T edit Word documents and it's not meant to. Notes is simply for jotting down quick notes without having to fire up a word processor. As a matter of fact, I'm writing this post in Notes. If you want to compare anything in Workspaces to Google Docs, it's Notes. It's an online word processor like Google Docs.
One nice feature or Workspace that you won't find in SharePoint is sharing your screen. You can invite upto 15 people with Windows Live IDs to view you screen along with you using Microsoft SharedView Beta, which is free at least for now.
If you've used Office Live Essentials or Office Live Premium, you'll find Office Live Workspaces very intuitive. It's very similar to the workspaces in those premium versions of Office Live Small Business. Come to think of it, my Office Live Basics account, together with Office Live Workspaces looks a lot like Office Live Essentials. But it's FREE and I like it!