- App Watch: A Name Game for the Too-Connected – @LearnThatName on WSJ
September 21, 2009
Jeetu's shared memory
Readonly access to Jeetu's volatile memory that was temporarily populated with items he reads.
September 21, 2009
Shared Items – September 21, 2009
App Watch: A Name Game for the Too-Connected – @LearnThatName on WSJ
September 19, 2009
Shared Items – September 19, 2009
September 18, 2009
Cougar sighting at Microsoft?
Google plans to use recently acquired reCAPTCHA for digitizing books. #innovation
Shared Items – September 18, 2009
Computers build Rome in a day, from holiday snaps
September 17, 2009
Memo to Start-ups: You’re Supposed to Be Changing the World, Remember?
MySpace Has Built Its Own Recommendation Engine, And They’re Open-Sourcing It. (Do Opensource and .Net go hand in hand?)
Imitation Isn’t Always Flattery: Microsoft Previews Google Apps Killer To Beta Testers
« Newer Posts — Older Posts »
Shared Items – September 21, 2009
App Watch: A Name Game for the Too-Connected – @LearnThatName on WSJ
Posted at blogs.wsj.com
Launched just last week, Learn That Name is a new iPhone application with an award already under its belt — from a Microsoft event.
- Learn That Name
- IPhone users try to match their LinkedIn connections to the right name in the iPhone app Learn That Name.
Eric Koester, a 32-year-old attorney at Cooley Godward Kronish, won at the recent Startup Weekend on Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., campus, for the app.
Here’s how it works: Learn That Name connects to your LinkedIn account to pull a photo from one of your contacts. You then have to identify the person’s name from four multiple-choice options, also taken from your contacts. You get points for making the correct match (it’s timed, with quicker responses yielding more points) and, in a bonus round, identifying your connection’s employer.
The game plays on something that tends to happen to avid users of social-networking sites: Eventually, you’re connected to hundreds of people who you barely know, and often can’t pick out in a crowd. “It’s almost like flash cards, for adults,” said Dustin Woodard, a search-engine-optimization consultant who is working with Mr. Koester on marketing Learn That Name.
- Learn That Name
- Players go from “schmuck” to “social butterfly” and eventually “master networker” by making the correct match from their social-networking connections.
Players advance from “schmuck” to higher levels — “drive-by handshaker,” “social butterfly,” “self-promoter,” “casual networker,” “wallflower,” “super socialite,” “people person,” “certified connector” and finally, “master networker” — as they score points. At the end of the game, it gives players the option to send a message to the connections who popped up, since, Mr. Koester said, they can use the game as an excuse to say hello to a long-lost acquaintance.
“The idea is that it’s a fun game, but at the end…it gives you the change to kind of reconnect,” he said.
Mr. Koester got the idea after he bumped into an acquaintance and blanked on his name. “It’s kind of embarrassing that I’ve got all of these connections in LinkedIn, but I don’t really know them.” Learn That Name is a way to “learn who you know better,” he added.
The app is selling for $1 on Apple’s App Store but will bump up to $2 in a few weeks. It will also be available as a Palm Pre application when that store launches, Mr. Woodard said. Mr. Koester said he’s considering a related services for Facebook and Windows Mobile and is already fielding requests from teachers and professors who want something like this for help getting to know their students.
Posted at blogs.wsj.com
Launched just last week, Learn That Name is a new iPhone application with an award already under its belt — from a Microsoft event.
- Learn That Name
- IPhone users try to match their LinkedIn connections to the right name in the iPhone app Learn That Name.
Eric Koester, a 32-year-old attorney at Cooley Godward Kronish, won at the recent Startup Weekend on Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., campus, for the app.
Here’s how it works: Learn That Name connects to your LinkedIn account to pull a photo from one of your contacts. You then have to identify the person’s name from four multiple-choice options, also taken from your contacts. You get points for making the correct match (it’s timed, with quicker responses yielding more points) and, in a bonus round, identifying your connection’s employer.
The game plays on something that tends to happen to avid users of social-networking sites: Eventually, you’re connected to hundreds of people who you barely know, and often can’t pick out in a crowd. “It’s almost like flash cards, for adults,” said Dustin Woodard, a search-engine-optimization consultant who is working with Mr. Koester on marketing Learn That Name.
- Learn That Name
- Players go from “schmuck” to “social butterfly” and eventually “master networker” by making the correct match from their social-networking connections.
Players advance from “schmuck” to higher levels — “drive-by handshaker,” “social butterfly,” “self-promoter,” “casual networker,” “wallflower,” “super socialite,” “people person,” “certified connector” and finally, “master networker” — as they score points. At the end of the game, it gives players the option to send a message to the connections who popped up, since, Mr. Koester said, they can use the game as an excuse to say hello to a long-lost acquaintance.
“The idea is that it’s a fun game, but at the end…it gives you the change to kind of reconnect,” he said.
Mr. Koester got the idea after he bumped into an acquaintance and blanked on his name. “It’s kind of embarrassing that I’ve got all of these connections in LinkedIn, but I don’t really know them.” Learn That Name is a way to “learn who you know better,” he added.
The app is selling for $1 on Apple’s App Store but will bump up to $2 in a few weeks. It will also be available as a Palm Pre application when that store launches, Mr. Woodard said. Mr. Koester said he’s considering a related services for Facebook and Windows Mobile and is already fielding requests from teachers and professors who want something like this for help getting to know their students.
Shared Items – September 19, 2009
- Cougar sighting at Microsoft?
September 18, 2009
- Google plans to use recently acquired reCAPTCHA for digitizing books. #innovation
September 18, 2009
- Webinar: Migrating a MySQL-based application to Amazon SimpleDB
September 15, 2009
- Cougar sighting at Microsoft?
- Google plans to use recently acquired reCAPTCHA for digitizing books. #innovation
- Webinar: Migrating a MySQL-based application to Amazon SimpleDB
September 18, 2009
September 18, 2009
September 15, 2009
Cougar sighting at Microsoft?
Posted at www.techflash.com
Cougar sighting at Microsoft?
John Cook on Friday, September 18, 2009, 12:37pm PDT
Department of Fish and Wildlife
Microsoft is already trying to fend off Snow Leopards. Now, it has cougars to deal with too. For the second day in a row, there’s been an unconfirmed cougar sighting on Microsoft’s Redmond campus near building 32.
A note to staffers gives some tips on what to do if they encounter a cougar. And it got us thinking that there might be some important lessons for Ballmer and crew as they attempt to navigate the unpredictable tech business. Or better yet, the lessons may even apply for those startup companies looking to wander onto Microsoft’s turf. Here’s the message that was sent to employees today.
For the second day, Global Security has received an unconfirmed report of a possible cougar sighting, this time near building 32.
Microsoft Security will conduct frequent patrols of all wooded areas of the campus, and will work with the State Department of Fish & Wildlife and other experts to assess the situation and provide further updates, as appropriate. In the meantime, we ask that all employees exercise appropriate caution, particularly in remote or wooded areas of campus. If you meet a cougar:
– Never approach a cougar. Although cougars will normally avoid a confrontation, all cougars are unpredictable. Cougars feeding on a kill may be dangerous.
– Always give a cougar an avenue of escape.
–Stay calm. Talk to the cougar in a confident voice.
–Pick all children up off the ground immediately. Children frighten easily and their rapid movements may provoke an attack.
–Do not run. Try to back away from the cougar slowly. Sudden movement or flight may trigger an instinctive attack. Do not turn your back on the cougar. Face the cougar and remain upright.
–Do all you can to enlarge your image. Don’t crouch down or try to hide. Pick up sticks or branches and wave them about.
Posted at www.techflash.com
Cougar sighting at Microsoft?
John Cook on Friday, September 18, 2009, 12:37pm PDT
Department of Fish and Wildlife
Microsoft is already trying to fend off Snow Leopards. Now, it has cougars to deal with too. For the second day in a row, there’s been an unconfirmed cougar sighting on Microsoft’s Redmond campus near building 32.
A note to staffers gives some tips on what to do if they encounter a cougar. And it got us thinking that there might be some important lessons for Ballmer and crew as they attempt to navigate the unpredictable tech business. Or better yet, the lessons may even apply for those startup companies looking to wander onto Microsoft’s turf. Here’s the message that was sent to employees today.
For the second day, Global Security has received an unconfirmed report of a possible cougar sighting, this time near building 32.
Microsoft Security will conduct frequent patrols of all wooded areas of the campus, and will work with the State Department of Fish & Wildlife and other experts to assess the situation and provide further updates, as appropriate. In the meantime, we ask that all employees exercise appropriate caution, particularly in remote or wooded areas of campus. If you meet a cougar:
– Never approach a cougar. Although cougars will normally avoid a confrontation, all cougars are unpredictable. Cougars feeding on a kill may be dangerous.
– Always give a cougar an avenue of escape.
–Stay calm. Talk to the cougar in a confident voice.
–Pick all children up off the ground immediately. Children frighten easily and their rapid movements may provoke an attack.
–Do not run. Try to back away from the cougar slowly. Sudden movement or flight may trigger an instinctive attack. Do not turn your back on the cougar. Face the cougar and remain upright.
–Do all you can to enlarge your image. Don’t crouch down or try to hide. Pick up sticks or branches and wave them about.
Google plans to use recently acquired reCAPTCHA for digitizing books. #innovation
Posted at Hack a Day
Google has acquired reCAPTCHA and plans to use the system for digitizing books. Wait… what? CAPTCHA is the method of requiring a user to type in a visually obscured word to prove they are human. How can this digitize books? The answer is a bit obscure and takes some time to discover, but you’ll have fun along the way.
The Google blog links to a Google TechTalk video on Human Computation as an example of how they plan to use their new acquisition. It’s embedded below but at 51 minutes we figure most won’t watch it all so we did it for you. This fascinating discussion looks at how people are already being tricked into solving CAPTCHA challenges, and shows several tested implementations of getting people to input cognitive data computers cannot, under the guise of playing games.
Spammers have to beat the CAPTCHA system in order to get large numbers of free email accounts. There have been examples of software overcoming this test such as the greasemonkey script that beat MegaUpload’s security, or Time Magazine’s poll being hacked. But, for the most part, only humans can pass the test. People seeking to bypass millions of CAPTCHA challenges either pay for sweatshop laborers to solve them or, more creatively, they get you to solve them when cruising for porn. This is the proof of concept; we can use people to interpret words computers cannot if we use the right carrot.
Talked about in the video, the ESP game was written in order to correctly tag photographs. Players are shown pictures and asked to type what they see. The round keeps going until the two have typed the same word. With a lot of players, and proper safeguards, these tags are incredibly accurate. Furthermore, the game has been very popular and has the potential to accomplish herculean feats in short amounts of time (namely, tag every image in Google’s image search in just a few months).
It seems that Google plans to use these methods to digitize books that are otherwise very difficult to scan with Optical Character Recognition. According to the video, 9 billion human hours were spent playing solitaire in 2003. What if a small portion of this time could be diverted over to playing games that added to the digitized knowledge cache? If the right type of verification game can be developed it will allow Google to tap society as their typing minions. It’s an interesting proposition and frankly we hope to see it happen.
Posted at Hack a Day
Google has acquired reCAPTCHA and plans to use the system for digitizing books. Wait… what? CAPTCHA is the method of requiring a user to type in a visually obscured word to prove they are human. How can this digitize books? The answer is a bit obscure and takes some time to discover, but you’ll have fun along the way.
The Google blog links to a Google TechTalk video on Human Computation as an example of how they plan to use their new acquisition. It’s embedded below but at 51 minutes we figure most won’t watch it all so we did it for you. This fascinating discussion looks at how people are already being tricked into solving CAPTCHA challenges, and shows several tested implementations of getting people to input cognitive data computers cannot, under the guise of playing games.
Spammers have to beat the CAPTCHA system in order to get large numbers of free email accounts. There have been examples of software overcoming this test such as the greasemonkey script that beat MegaUpload’s security, or Time Magazine’s poll being hacked. But, for the most part, only humans can pass the test. People seeking to bypass millions of CAPTCHA challenges either pay for sweatshop laborers to solve them or, more creatively, they get you to solve them when cruising for porn. This is the proof of concept; we can use people to interpret words computers cannot if we use the right carrot.
Talked about in the video, the ESP game was written in order to correctly tag photographs. Players are shown pictures and asked to type what they see. The round keeps going until the two have typed the same word. With a lot of players, and proper safeguards, these tags are incredibly accurate. Furthermore, the game has been very popular and has the potential to accomplish herculean feats in short amounts of time (namely, tag every image in Google’s image search in just a few months).
It seems that Google plans to use these methods to digitize books that are otherwise very difficult to scan with Optical Character Recognition. According to the video, 9 billion human hours were spent playing solitaire in 2003. What if a small portion of this time could be diverted over to playing games that added to the digitized knowledge cache? If the right type of verification game can be developed it will allow Google to tap society as their typing minions. It’s an interesting proposition and frankly we hope to see it happen.
Shared Items – September 18, 2009
- Memo to Start-ups: You’re Supposed to Be Changing the World, Remember?
September 17, 2009
- MySpace Has Built Its Own Recommendation Engine, And They’re Open-Sourcing It. (Do Opensource and .Net go hand in hand?)
September 17, 2009 – Do Opensource and .Net go hand in hand?
- Imitation Isn’t Always Flattery: Microsoft Previews Google Apps Killer To Beta Testers
September 17, 2009
- Closures
September 3, 2009
- Can you trust any VCs under 40?
September 16, 2009
- Memo to Start-ups: You’re Supposed to Be Changing the World, Remember?
- MySpace Has Built Its Own Recommendation Engine, And They’re Open-Sourcing It. (Do Opensource and .Net go hand in hand?)
- Imitation Isn’t Always Flattery: Microsoft Previews Google Apps Killer To Beta Testers
- Closures
- Can you trust any VCs under 40?
September 17, 2009
September 17, 2009 – Do Opensource and .Net go hand in hand?
September 17, 2009
September 3, 2009
September 16, 2009
Computers build Rome in a day, from holiday snaps
Posted at Electronics Weekly News
by editorial@electronicsweekly.com
The University of Washington has developed a photo-stitching algorithm that produced a 3D model of Rome in under a day, from 150,000 tourist photos. The tool is the most recent in a series developed at the university, and in this used photos tagged either Rome or Roma from Flickr.
Posted at Electronics Weekly News
by editorial@electronicsweekly.com
The University of Washington has developed a photo-stitching algorithm that produced a 3D model of Rome in under a day, from 150,000 tourist photos. The tool is the most recent in a series developed at the university, and in this used photos tagged either Rome or Roma from Flickr.
Memo to Start-ups: You’re Supposed to Be Changing the World, Remember?
Posted at www.techcrunch.com
Here’s why this matters: Start-ups by definition don’t have the experience, market position, funding or resources to tackle obvious market opportunities. If what they’re trying to do makes clear business sense, a bigger, better-positioned company would do it. A start-up’s only edge is that it’s not built into legacy businesses and preconceived notions and can do something, well, crazy.
There are entrepreneurs somewhere building the next big companies. But it’s probably just a wonky side-project that no one—not even the entrepreneur himself—realizes is the next big thing. That’s who we need to drag on stage next year.
Posted at www.techcrunch.com
Here’s why this matters: Start-ups by definition don’t have the experience, market position, funding or resources to tackle obvious market opportunities. If what they’re trying to do makes clear business sense, a bigger, better-positioned company would do it. A start-up’s only edge is that it’s not built into legacy businesses and preconceived notions and can do something, well, crazy.
There are entrepreneurs somewhere building the next big companies. But it’s probably just a wonky side-project that no one—not even the entrepreneur himself—realizes is the next big thing. That’s who we need to drag on stage next year.
MySpace Has Built Its Own Recommendation Engine, And They’re Open-Sourcing It. (Do Opensource and .Net go hand in hand?)
Do Opensource and .Net go hand in hand?
Posted at TechCrunch
As social networks continue to grow in size, recommendation engines are becoming a more vital part to each of them. So vital, in fact, that MySpace has built its own.
Called Qizmt, this internally-developed framework was created by the Data Mining team at MySpace. You can see it in action right now with the “People You May Know” feature. But soon, MySpace plans to roll it out to other areas of the site for recommendations soon. More importantly, MySpace plans to open-source the technology for anyone to use. They made the announcement today at the Computerworld Conference in Chicago.
From a technical perspective, MySpace explains it as such:
What makes Qizmt unique is that it was developed using C#.NET specifically for Windows platforms. This extends the rapid development nature of the .NET environment to the world of large scale data crunching and enables .NET developers to easily leverage their skill set to write MapReduce functions. Not only is Qizmt easy to use but based on our internal benchmarks we have shown its processing speeds to be competitive with the leading MapReduce open source projects on a lesser number of cores.
MySpace says it has published the code for Qizmt today. They also note that they have recently open-sourced MSFast, a service they built to help developers track page load performance.
Rival Facebook has been doing a bit of its own open-sourcing recently. Last week, they opened up Tornado, the platform that help to power FriendFeed, which they recently acquired.
Information provided by CrunchBase
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
Do Opensource and .Net go hand in hand?
Posted at TechCrunch
As social networks continue to grow in size, recommendation engines are becoming a more vital part to each of them. So vital, in fact, that MySpace has built its own.
Called Qizmt, this internally-developed framework was created by the Data Mining team at MySpace. You can see it in action right now with the “People You May Know” feature. But soon, MySpace plans to roll it out to other areas of the site for recommendations soon. More importantly, MySpace plans to open-source the technology for anyone to use. They made the announcement today at the Computerworld Conference in Chicago.
From a technical perspective, MySpace explains it as such:
What makes Qizmt unique is that it was developed using C#.NET specifically for Windows platforms. This extends the rapid development nature of the .NET environment to the world of large scale data crunching and enables .NET developers to easily leverage their skill set to write MapReduce functions. Not only is Qizmt easy to use but based on our internal benchmarks we have shown its processing speeds to be competitive with the leading MapReduce open source projects on a lesser number of cores.
MySpace says it has published the code for Qizmt today. They also note that they have recently open-sourced MSFast, a service they built to help developers track page load performance.
Rival Facebook has been doing a bit of its own open-sourcing recently. Last week, they opened up Tornado, the platform that help to power FriendFeed, which they recently acquired.
Information provided by CrunchBase
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
Imitation Isn’t Always Flattery: Microsoft Previews Google Apps Killer To Beta Testers
Posted at TechCrunch
by Leena Rao
Imitation isn’t always the sincerest form of flattery, and this is certainly the case for Microsoft in the development and launch of its web-based browser versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote. All based in the cloud, the web-based versions of these products, which are aggressive competitors to Google Apps, have fewer features than their desktop cousins but still give users basic tools to edit and change documents in the cloud. We wrote about these products during Microsoft’s announcement about the new features of Office 2010 back in July. Today, Microsoft is officially rolling out the FREE web-based version of its Office suite, which is officially called Microsoft Office Web Applications, to a select amount of Windows Live SkyDrive users in anticipation of the public release in the first half of 2010.
Microsoft Office’s move to the cloud isn’t surprising. Facing challenges from Google’s browser-based Apps products and its new Chrome OS, Microsoft is under pressure to make its three screens strategy, which is the ability for products to synchronize across the phone, browser, and desktop, a successful reality. We received a hands-on demo of the SkyDrive-based, collaborative web-based apps (our previous demo in July was for apps based on Microsoft Sharepoint) and I must admit, it’s impressive. Here’s a comprehensive view of what to expect at some point next year:
Windows Live SkyDrive:
Microsoft Office Web Applications will be a part of Windows Live SkyDrive, which is an online file storage provided by Microsoft. Users sign in to SkyDrive by using their Windows Live IDs so anyone who has a Windows Live account will be able to access the free web-based versions (Microsoft currently has 500 million Windows Live customers). All of the documents and files created and stored in the office suite will be hosted in SkyDrive’s 25 GB of free online storage.
It’s important to note that SkyDrive is for or non-enterprise users. Microsoft’s Web Applications will also be available in its secure, behind the firewall storage system Sharepoint which will eventually have integration with Windows Azure.
When you sign into SkyDrive, you click on the “My Documents” tab which will take you to you an interface where you can create, share and edit PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, Word documents and OneNote files.
All of the applications are shareable even if the recipient doesn’t have Microsoft Office’s web-based or desktop applications installed on the computers. So you can share a web-based PowerPoint presentation with an individual who doesn’t have PowerPoint installed on his or her computers. Also, in order to share a file, you type in the recipients email address. The recipient doesn’t need a Windows Live account to see or comment on the file.
Also, Microsoft Office Web Applications works on Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari (versions for Chrome are still being developed).
PowerPoint Web Application:
The web-based application lets you open, create and edit PowerPoint presentations in a lightweight version of the desktop application. What does lightweight mean? Well, you can change fonts, colors, text and some graphics. But most of the bells and whistles that create the impressive looking PowerPoint decks are in the desktop version only. The experience is very similar to the desktop version of the application, which is achieved through the power of javascript and AJAX. Presentations look the same on the web and in the desktop version, even though there are some features that you cannot create in the web-based product.
Microsoft has made it very simple to switch between the desktop and web. In the browser-based version, you simply click an “Open in PowerPoint” button and the desktop version will open up the file. If you make any changes to either the desktop or web-versions of a presentation, your file will be saved on both platforms simultaneously, making the transitions seamless. It’s ideal for presentations (think Web-Ex), where you have more functionality to play with in the desktop version (giving you the ability to create sleeker decks), but can easily share and save comments and edits during a live presentation.
Excel Web Application:
Similar to PowerPoint, the web-based version of Excel is a lightweight application that offers the basic features. You can modify data, make formatting changes, enter new columns, create new headers, change colors and sort and filter data. One key lacking feature in the web-based product: the ability to create charts. This is a significant part of the Excel’s desktop version that’s missing from it’s browser cousin. Of course, if you create a spreadsheet with charts in the desktop version of Excel, the file will look exactly the same in the web-based version, but you won’t be able to re-create charts.
But whereas there are limitations in the creation of spreadsheets, Microsoft has possibly made up for this in its collaboration sharing capabilities. Spreadsheets can be edited by multiple users in real-time. And spreadsheets can be shared and commented on by anyone, even those who don’t have the desktop version of Excel.
Word Web Application/OneNote:
Documents in the Word desktop application look exactly the same in the web-based version and can be shared and commented on by anyone. If you have Microsoft Silverlight installed on your computers, you’ll have the added bonus of being able to zoom in and out high degrees.
In the version that will be rolled out to beta testers today, the the web application of Word and OneNote will not be feature the ability to edit but this functionality will be available when the products are launched next year. Unfortunately, the real-time collaborative editing feature of Word is missing in this version, but the hope is that this will be added next year as well.
Mobile:
We mentioned in our original post in July that the ability to use products across the OS, browser, and mobile device is a key part of Microsoft’s strategy. We actually demo’d the Sharepoint-based version of PowerPoint on an iPhone and it was disarmingly sleek. While this functionality has already been established for Sharepoint, the SkyDrive-based apps are still being developed to work on mobile browsers. Microsoft says it will be done by the time the product launches next year.
The Wrapup:
Microsoft says it will be adding beta testers in waves of 1000 users until the product launches. There’s no doubt that the web-based apps are impressive. And the ability to seamlessly switch between the desktop and web versions is key, and one that Google currently can’t compete with. But one of the important innovations that Microsoft has made in this consumer-facing version is the sharing and collaborative features, which are certainly the future of any professional applications suite.
As we wrote in the past, Microsoft’s move to the browser could pay off in a big way, especially when it comes to giving Google Apps a run for its money. Microsoft seems certain that Microsoft Office Web Applications will be popular amongst students, which is a sector that Google has been gaining traction. But the more successful Microsoft is in its browser strategy, the more they validate Google’s approach in the space, which will eventually put price pressure on Office. Let the wars begin.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
Posted at TechCrunch
by Leena Rao
Imitation isn’t always the sincerest form of flattery, and this is certainly the case for Microsoft in the development and launch of its web-based browser versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote. All based in the cloud, the web-based versions of these products, which are aggressive competitors to Google Apps, have fewer features than their desktop cousins but still give users basic tools to edit and change documents in the cloud. We wrote about these products during Microsoft’s announcement about the new features of Office 2010 back in July. Today, Microsoft is officially rolling out the FREE web-based version of its Office suite, which is officially called Microsoft Office Web Applications, to a select amount of Windows Live SkyDrive users in anticipation of the public release in the first half of 2010.
Microsoft Office’s move to the cloud isn’t surprising. Facing challenges from Google’s browser-based Apps products and its new Chrome OS, Microsoft is under pressure to make its three screens strategy, which is the ability for products to synchronize across the phone, browser, and desktop, a successful reality. We received a hands-on demo of the SkyDrive-based, collaborative web-based apps (our previous demo in July was for apps based on Microsoft Sharepoint) and I must admit, it’s impressive. Here’s a comprehensive view of what to expect at some point next year:
Windows Live SkyDrive:
Microsoft Office Web Applications will be a part of Windows Live SkyDrive, which is an online file storage provided by Microsoft. Users sign in to SkyDrive by using their Windows Live IDs so anyone who has a Windows Live account will be able to access the free web-based versions (Microsoft currently has 500 million Windows Live customers). All of the documents and files created and stored in the office suite will be hosted in SkyDrive’s 25 GB of free online storage.
It’s important to note that SkyDrive is for or non-enterprise users. Microsoft’s Web Applications will also be available in its secure, behind the firewall storage system Sharepoint which will eventually have integration with Windows Azure.
When you sign into SkyDrive, you click on the “My Documents” tab which will take you to you an interface where you can create, share and edit PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, Word documents and OneNote files.
All of the applications are shareable even if the recipient doesn’t have Microsoft Office’s web-based or desktop applications installed on the computers. So you can share a web-based PowerPoint presentation with an individual who doesn’t have PowerPoint installed on his or her computers. Also, in order to share a file, you type in the recipients email address. The recipient doesn’t need a Windows Live account to see or comment on the file.
Also, Microsoft Office Web Applications works on Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari (versions for Chrome are still being developed).
PowerPoint Web Application:
The web-based application lets you open, create and edit PowerPoint presentations in a lightweight version of the desktop application. What does lightweight mean? Well, you can change fonts, colors, text and some graphics. But most of the bells and whistles that create the impressive looking PowerPoint decks are in the desktop version only. The experience is very similar to the desktop version of the application, which is achieved through the power of javascript and AJAX. Presentations look the same on the web and in the desktop version, even though there are some features that you cannot create in the web-based product.
Microsoft has made it very simple to switch between the desktop and web. In the browser-based version, you simply click an “Open in PowerPoint” button and the desktop version will open up the file. If you make any changes to either the desktop or web-versions of a presentation, your file will be saved on both platforms simultaneously, making the transitions seamless. It’s ideal for presentations (think Web-Ex), where you have more functionality to play with in the desktop version (giving you the ability to create sleeker decks), but can easily share and save comments and edits during a live presentation.
Excel Web Application:
Similar to PowerPoint, the web-based version of Excel is a lightweight application that offers the basic features. You can modify data, make formatting changes, enter new columns, create new headers, change colors and sort and filter data. One key lacking feature in the web-based product: the ability to create charts. This is a significant part of the Excel’s desktop version that’s missing from it’s browser cousin. Of course, if you create a spreadsheet with charts in the desktop version of Excel, the file will look exactly the same in the web-based version, but you won’t be able to re-create charts.
But whereas there are limitations in the creation of spreadsheets, Microsoft has possibly made up for this in its collaboration sharing capabilities. Spreadsheets can be edited by multiple users in real-time. And spreadsheets can be shared and commented on by anyone, even those who don’t have the desktop version of Excel.
Word Web Application/OneNote:
Documents in the Word desktop application look exactly the same in the web-based version and can be shared and commented on by anyone. If you have Microsoft Silverlight installed on your computers, you’ll have the added bonus of being able to zoom in and out high degrees.
In the version that will be rolled out to beta testers today, the the web application of Word and OneNote will not be feature the ability to edit but this functionality will be available when the products are launched next year. Unfortunately, the real-time collaborative editing feature of Word is missing in this version, but the hope is that this will be added next year as well.
Mobile:
We mentioned in our original post in July that the ability to use products across the OS, browser, and mobile device is a key part of Microsoft’s strategy. We actually demo’d the Sharepoint-based version of PowerPoint on an iPhone and it was disarmingly sleek. While this functionality has already been established for Sharepoint, the SkyDrive-based apps are still being developed to work on mobile browsers. Microsoft says it will be done by the time the product launches next year.
The Wrapup:
Microsoft says it will be adding beta testers in waves of 1000 users until the product launches. There’s no doubt that the web-based apps are impressive. And the ability to seamlessly switch between the desktop and web versions is key, and one that Google currently can’t compete with. But one of the important innovations that Microsoft has made in this consumer-facing version is the sharing and collaborative features, which are certainly the future of any professional applications suite.
As we wrote in the past, Microsoft’s move to the browser could pay off in a big way, especially when it comes to giving Google Apps a run for its money. Microsoft seems certain that Microsoft Office Web Applications will be popular amongst students, which is a sector that Google has been gaining traction. But the more successful Microsoft is in its browser strategy, the more they validate Google’s approach in the space, which will eventually put price pressure on Office. Let the wars begin.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
Jeetu Mirchandani
