Big Move for Microsoft next week

We all know the cloud is a heavily fought area for IT innovation and effective operational expenditure and that Microsoft have some pretty neat solutions for businesses through the BPOS offering, but on Wednesday next week Microsoft will be taking a further step forward to challenge Google in the online apps space with a free online version of Office.

The company launches its latest version, Office 2010, on Wednesday in New York — and the stakes couldn't be higher.

Because of Google, Microsoft has been forced to make a free ad-supported version called Office Web Apps.

Office 2010 does represent a slow tipping of the entire technology industry, from a PC world Microsoft long has dominated to a cloud-computing world, where software roams free on the computer, phone, tablet and television, and the old ways of making money are changing.

Wednesday's event at NBC Studios in New York will mark the first day business customers can buy copies of Office 2010 that gets installed on PCs. The software will start selling in stores to small businesses and consumers sometime in June. The free Office Web Apps also will be available to consumers in June.

Four years ago, Google began offering the stripped-down Web-based word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation software to compete with Office.

Google Docs saves each file on a Google server so people can access it from any PC or device rather than saving it to a thumb drive, e-mailing it back and forth as an attachment or physically being at a specific computer to open a file.

The public version of Google Docs is free to individuals, and Google sells the software to businesses for $50 per user each year in a suite called Google Apps. The paid version has more security, privacy controls and customer support, and it runs on a network with guaranteed service levels. Google says that, combined, more than 25 million people are using the free and paid versions.

To counter Google Docs, Office Web Apps will offer more features and what the company claims is a better visual presentation than its competitor. But Office Web Apps will not have all the features of Office 2010, which is being priced from $119 to $499, depending on the version.

The free version of Office Web Apps will have advertising; Google says it has no plans to add ads to Google Docs.

Office Web Apps, allows users to create, edit and share Office docs with people who have Office and those who don't. Two people could simultaneously edit the same spreadsheet, Word document or PowerPoint presentation from different locations through a PC, the Web or a Windows Mobile phone.

The Office team also built a new social-network feature into Outlook, the Outlook Social Connector, so users can pull up contact information from Facebook and LinkedIn without leaving Microsoft's e-mail software.

A new video-editing feature was added to PowerPoint, and the new Word has a photo-editing feature.

We have been testing the capability for a while now and have to say are impressed with what we have seen.