Microsoft Office Live Workspace Beta now available for everyone

Curious George on TechNet and more... - Announcement of worldwide availability of Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta

"We have just launched the worldwide availability of Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta.

You can sign up now at http://workspace.officelive.com with immediate access and no waitlist

Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta is a free Web-based extension of Microsoft Office that enables people to access their documents online and easily share their work and collaborate with others

Anywhere Access

• Store over 1,000 Microsoft Office documents and other files (500 MB available) in a password-protected location on the Internet and access them from almost any Internet-connected computer (full Firefox support for PC & Mac)

• View Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office PowerPoint or PDF documents, even if Microsoft Office is not on the computer you are using

• Keep Web-based lists (eg to-do lists, guest lists and wish lists) and ad hoc notes so that they are available when needed

...

Sign up yourself and tell friends, family & colleagues to go to : http://workspace.officelive.com"

Now you can have your own little sub-SharePoint in the cloud.

The Office Live Add-in for Office (Office Live Add-in for Microsoft Office: Open and save documents directly from Microsoft Office Word, Office Excel, and Office PowerPoint to Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta) is a must have for Workspace users. It makes it drop dead easy to open from, and save to, your Workspaces directly from within Office 2002, 2003 & 2007.

 

Now the question is, how does this relate to SkyDrive? The two seem similar in some respects (i.e. sharing files with others) and could lead to some confusion. I'm thinking we'll see a merge or something like it in the future (or one will be killed, etc). Or maybe just a better story as to how they are really different... But it would be pretty cool if I could access my SkyDrive from within my Workspace. SkyDrive for the basic file storage, Workspace as the front end?

Anyway, you can start playing with Workspaces today... And it's free...

 

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First update for Office Live Workspaces released