Microsoft Albany Beta launches today, what is it?

New milestone for Microsoft by offering subscription based Office ...

... Microsoft launches Albany Beta today, but what is it? The name reveals nothing. “Albany” is the codename for a new all-in-one subscription service of essential software and services for consumers. It consists of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Windows Live OneCare, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Photo Gallery, it also installs the Microsoft Office Live Workspace connector. With Albany consumers will get the latest versions of Microsoft Office Home and Student and Windows Live OneCare as they are released.

Each “Albany” subscription is good for three PCs and the final version of the product will be delivered before the end of this calendar year. Microsoft Office and Windows Live OneCare will still be sold as standalone package as well. Albany just gives customers more choice and addresses the needs of those customers who value having the latest and greatest version of Microsoft Office. Pricing is not yet known.

Q&A: Group Product Manager Bryson Gordon discusses “Albany”
Getting ready for Windows Live Wave 3 .... 

Source: Albany Beta launches today, what is it?

Google Apps: Discovering That Microsoft Owns the Desktop

Guy Creese of Burton Group, published a report on Google Apps last year. We can expect an updated perspective in several weeks ...

... I've been updating my Google Apps report (the updated version should be out in several weeks) and in the course of making the revisions, I began to notice a pattern: Google is discovering--and reacting to the fact--that Microsoft still pretty much owns the information worker desktop. ...

... In other words, Google Apps is morphing to become a backend service to Microsoft Office. (This doesn't mean that the Google Calendar and Gmail interfaces are going away, but rather that the Microsoft Office interfaces can take their place if an enterprise so desires.) ...

.... This product strategy shift means that Google Apps now has two marketing stories: (1) it's cheap on the backend and frontend or (2) it's cheap on the backend. Google started with #1 (instead of paying Microsoft Office and Exchange license fees, pay $50 per user per year) but is now recognizing that may be too big a cultural leap for large organizations. So now it's offering option #2: (instead of paying Exchange license fees, pay $50 per user per year). With #2, the Google mantra of "Use Google Apps because it has a great consumer-tested UI" goes away, but the "less in your face" strategy may be more to enterprises' liking. ...

Google Apps: Discovering That Microsoft Owns the Desktop

Office Live Workspace beta open voor Nederland

De Office Live Workspace beta is nu internationaal beschikbaar voor een aantal landen, waardonder Nederland. De beta is  nu alleen nog in het Engels beschikbaar is en zal uiteraard later dit jaar ook in het Nederlands beschikbaar komen.

Inschrijven kan met een bestaande of nieuw te creeeren Windows Live ID binnen 30 sec. Zoals ik in een eerdere blogpost al vermeldde is de functionaliteit recentelijk nog uitgebreid en gebruikers kunnen ook met enige regelmaat nieuwe updates verwachten.

O ja ... het is gratis ...

Office Live Workspace - first feature update goes live

Office Live Workspace get's its first update ...

In case you didn't know, Office Live Workspace is bases on SharePoint, integrated with Office XP and newer version and .. free :-)

A new Activity pane to help you keep track of what’s happening in your workspaces and email notifications so you always know when the people you share with make updates. This feature is a lot of fun and makes it easy to see at glance the changes happening in your workspace and in individual documents. Now you’ll know when someone comments on your document, adds a note, or updates an important list.

New support for adding multiple documents to your workspaces. The Add multiple documents button makes it is easier than ever to bring your documents into a workspace by browsing and selecting files from your computer or dragging and dropping files on the document uploader.

New permalinks for sharing direct hyperlinks to your workspaces and documents. Now you can bookmark individual workspaces and items in your workspace using the “add to favorites” tool in your web browser or copy the address bar and paste those links into emails to share with others.

A new Share workspace UI to easily invite others to your workspace. With the improved address book buttons you can quickly add people from your Windows Live addresses book (contacts from Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger) and people you have shared with before. You can also include more details in your invitation with the larger message box and choose to CC yourself on the invitation.

Besides these, other fixes and improvements have been made and the Office Live add-in has been updated.

Google gaat met Sites op de Sharepoint-toer

Dat Google zich meer en meer begeeft op andere terreinen dan search is bekend; ook deze stap is geen verrassing. Google had JotSpot namelijk niet voor niets gekocht ...

Google is echter nog steeds voornamelijk bekend als searchengine met zelfs een eigen werkwoord "google-en". Maar concluderend uit deze en de vale andere artikelen over deze aankondiging stel ik vast : Microsoft en met name SharePoint is synoniem met online samenwerken : "SharePointen" anyone ?

Vanuit Microsoft zijn komende week ook wat aankondigingen te verwachten, dus stay tuned ..

Google heeft deze week Google Sites geïntroduceerd. Het opzetten van een website voor het samenwerken in een team wordt daarmee zo simpel als het aanmaken van een document, belooft het bedrijf.

Source: Google gaat met Sites op de Sharepoint-toer
Automatisering Gids
Date Published: Thu, 28 Feb 2008

Office Live Workspace

Office Live Workspace update. I can recommend the video, as it explains the capabilities in a nutshell ..

Hello Valued Customer,
Thank you for your interest in Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta. We haven’t forgotten about your pre-registration and appreciate your patience. We’re still gathering feedback from thousands of early testers in the United States to fine-tune the user experience before releasing the service worldwide.
Over the next few months you should receive an e-mail invitation to the English version of Office Live Workspace, and later this year we will make other languages available too.
In the meantime, please visit our team blog to get updates on the service, learn why we created Office Live Workspace, and watch interviews with the team. Also, check out our new video (below) to get a preview of what you will be able to do with your workspace.

InfoWorld: 'Office 14' to be more Web-friendly, Gates says

 

InfoWorld ran an article about the speech of Bill Gates at the Office Developer Conference. A lot of interest ofcourse on what the next version of Office System will bring and ofcourse the strategy also there is Software + Services ...

... Microsoft envisions the next version of Office to have partial online functionality similar to how Outlook Web Access works

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates talked publicly for the first time on Monday about the next big Office release, code-named Office 14, which he said will give users new ways to access their applications online.

Microsoft won't provide the full functionality of Office online, but it will offer limited capabilities to view and edit the data in Office applications. It already does this for its Outlook e-mail client with a product called Outlook Web Access, and it will offer similar capabilities for other applications in Office 14, Gates said in a speech at the Microsoft Office System Developer Conference in San Jose, Calif.

"Outlook Web Access is not the full version of Office, but if you want to go into a kiosk or an Internet cafe and browse and connect, it gives you plenty of functionality," he said. "As we look at all the modules [in Office 14], we have in mind the equivalent of Outlook Web Access," Gates said.

It was the first time Microsoft had confirmed the "Office 14" moniker for the next release, although the Windows enthusiast Web site AeroXperience reported that fact recently, citing an internal Microsoft document. It also reported that a beta of Office 14 would appear this year with commercial release planned for 2009. ...

Source: InfoWorld.com

eWeek: Google Must Make or Break GAPE in 2008

Some perspectives on Google Apps for the Enterprise. The question basicly seems to be is Google serious about the Apps business or not ...

 

.... This may be the year Google makes or breaks GAPE, the enterprise version of Google Apps that lets businesses license hosted e-mail, instant documents, spreadsheets and other applications for $50 per user per year.

The numbers sound great on paper: 2,000 new businesses per day signing up for Google Apps. Then there are hearty testimonials from customers now freed from Microsoft Office or Lotus Notes.

The problem is that neither Microsoft nor IBM will wait for Google to come and take market share. Microsoft has Office Live Workspace, and it's likely IBM will answer with an SAAS (software as a service) version of Lotus Symphony. ....

... Barbin said Google is trying to secure six to eight large prospects considering GAPE for anywhere from 1,000 to 20,000 seats. One prospect expects to scale to 100,000 seats. "These are large, sophisticated IT shops that are kicking the tires pretty hard," he said.

Though Barbin couldn't name those customers, he said Google is placing a heavy emphasis on financial services and high-tech, the verticals where Office and Lotus are layered so thick. Appirio is right in the mix, helping Google with its application development, SAAS strategy and SAAS rollout expertise.

Still, analysts at IDC are skeptical that Google will get the traction it needs to muscle Microsoft and IBM from major accounts. ...

... Moreover, Happe said, Google is involved in so many big ideas, from social platforms to wireless networks, that it will be really hard for the company to chip away at Microsoft and IBM in the office and collaboration space.

This is why 2008 will be a telling year for Google Apps. If Google can land a dozen large GAPE installations over the next 12 months, it will give the suite the momentum it needs to roll forward. If the big fish don't bite, it's unlikely the company will put the same resources behind it.

If GAPE fails, it's not clear how much Google will lose. The beauty of this SAAS software is that it is a fortified version of the consumer Google Apps that the company has been rolling out the last few years. Users will still use the free editions of Apps; in the cloud, it's all relative.

Moreover, unlike Yahoo, the company wouldn't have to shut down the whole enterprise division—Google still has Geo and the Google Search Appliance to hawk.

Even so, a healthy SAAS business could be a major supporting money-maker for Google when the online ad market matures in five years or so.  ...

 

Source: Google Must Make or Break GAPE in 2008
matthew_rothenberg@ziffdavis.com
Date Published: Sat, 05 Jan 2008

AG: Slechts weinigen betalen voor Google Apps

Het recente onderzoek door NPD is al door een aantal sites aangehaald. Het geeft een momentopname vwb het gebruik van online Office Suites ...

... Er zijn 'miljoenen' mensen die de online kantoorsuite Google Apps gebruiken, maar de betaalde versie ervan, Google Apps Premier Edition, vindt weinig aftrek, concludeert Computerworld uit de woorden van een Google-woordvoerder. 

Slechts 'enkele duizenden' organisaties hebben ingetekend voor die betaalde versie, die 50 dollar per gegruiker per jaar kost. Daarvoor krijgen die bedrijven onder andere extra e-mailopslag, een 99,9-procents uptime-garantie, e-mailarchivering en beveiliging. Enkele maanden geleden introduceerde overigens Capgemini zijn eigen support als aanvulling op de gratis versie van Google Apps.

Uit recent onderzoek van NPD blijkt dat 2,3 procent van de Amerikanen Google Apps wel eens gebruikt.

Slechts 0,5 procent doet dat ter vervanging van Microsoft Office. ...

Source: Slechts weinigen betalen voor Google Apps
Automatisering Gids
Date Published: Fri, 28 Dec 2007

Online office suites barely register with public, says study; that may change as they mature

ARS Technica published research by NPD Group. They surveyed 600 Americans about their knowledge and usage of Online Office suites. Not much yet is the conclusion ..

... A new study by the NPD Group doesn't paint a great picture for the current state of online productivity suites. If the numbers from a survey of 600 US residents are to be believed, most of us have never heard of, let alone tried, products such as Google Docs or Zoho. Considering various factors such as visibility and the industry's untested waters though, these numbers could be due for a significant shift in the coming years.

According to NPD Group numbers, 73 percent of the 600 Americans surveyed have never heard of online office suites, while another 20 percent have, but simply haven't tried any for one reason or another. The remaining six percent of respondents are split between those who have heard of the suites and either haven't used them again, use them infrequently, and use both online suites and desktop apps like Microsoft Office. Based on these numbers, some have already written a eulogy for Web 2.0 office suites, but that assessment might be a bit early.

There are various reasons for the perceived limited success of online office suites, starting with their lack of visibility. As they stand right now, online office suites have a hard time getting in front of users because they aren't offered as boxed software that can adorn retail shelves. Even Google's toolbar that sits above many of its services doesn't highlight the Docs product; users have to click the More button and find Docs among a sea of other Google offerings. To try and overcome this obstacle and snag more consumer attention, however, Zoho plans to mimic successful online offerings like Apple's .Mac package by getting actual retail boxes on store shelves in 2008. The box will be virtually empty, with not much more than some starter documentation that informs customers about the site, helping to get them started with using its various web apps. ...

More at Source

Source : ARS Technica.com

Forrester: RIAs Bring People-Centered Design To Information Workplaces

I am learning a new buzz word every day ... RIA, it not someone I know, it's a Rich Internet Application. These RIA;s will impact the Information workplace according to Forrester. Good insight, a bit of an open door as the majority of players in the market have a strategy and solutions which include RIA's in one way or the other. Microsoft's Software + Services strategy is a good example of how Microsoft views the Information Workplace is changing ...

... Until recently, the primary options for delivering on the vision of Information Workplaces were enterprise portals or Microsoft Office. While those options remain suitable for many scenarios, rich Internet applications (RIAs) are emerging as vehicles to enable the next generation of Information Workplaces that are best suited for decision-makers and task-oriented workers who engage in complex, multistep processes — people who need seamless, individualized, and highly visual user experiences. Information and knowledge management (I&KM) professionals should analyze roles to decide if RIAs are appropriate, integrate data from existing applications into RIA-based Information Workplaces, and test rigorously to make sure that RIA-based Information Workplaces attain optimal results that will improve both employee and end customer experiences. ...

Source: RIAs Bring People-Centered Design To Information Workplaces
Authors: "Erica Driver, Ron Rogowski"
Date Published: Mon, 26 Nov 2007

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

Linking the offline to the online world. Microsoft Office Live Workspace is not an open beta yet. I will try and find out if there's dates available for this because this is worhwhile evaluating ...

The Office Live Add-in will install new menu options allowing you to open and save documents directly from Microsoft Office Word, Office Excel, and Office PowerPoint to Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta.

Source: 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
Date Published: Thu, 29 Nov 2007

Microsoft expands Office ‘pay-as-you-go’ rental program

The program is expanded to 5 additional countries for now :

... Microsoft is extending its Office “rental” program to five more markets before the end of 2007.

Microsoft will begin offering the 2007 Microsoft Office Prepaid Edition in India, Indonesia, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Egypt before the end of calendar 2007, company officials said on November 14. Microsoft already offers Office 2007 on a “pay-as-you-go” basis in South Africa and Romania.

Via the pay-as-you-go program, users can choose three- or six-month subscriptions to Office Professional 2007 and pay a monthly fee to use the product. Users may renew the subscriptions at any time. If they don’t renew, Office goes into reduced functionality mode, which allows users to continue to view and print files. Users cannot create or save new files or modify existing ones in this mode. ...

Microsoft expands Office ‘pay-as-you-go’ rental program
Mary Jo Foley
Wed, 14 Nov 2007

Jeff Raikes: Desktop application software is not dead

InfoWorld published an article featuring some comments made by Jeff Raikes in his keynote at Convergence. I think that the article takes things a bit out of context; it makes Microsoft look defensive in a way. Microsoft should have no reason to be defensive over the Software + Services model it has introduced. Microsoft has created an asset over the last decade which it leverages in a very good way; it protects clients' investements in software and hardware and allows them to gradually take advatage of SaaS solutions.

Like Jeff Raikes said many other vendors are introducing or expanding solutions that create offline / rich client capabilities which indicates that not many client take a leap of faith to fully "cloud based" solutions ...

... top Microsoft executive defended desktop application software, the source of the company's revenue for three decades, arguing on Tuesday that even services-based companies such as Google still need it.

The comments by Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's business applications division, come as Microsoft is trying to position itself as a company capable of delivering applications over the Internet as well as on PCs, its traditional distribution model.

"It's interesting some our competitors who like to espouse the idea that software is dead," said Raikes said. "I think they're worried that actually people like a lot of what they have at their fingertips, and the real success is to use a combination."

Microsoft has come under increasing pressure from companies such as Salesforce.com, which specializes in Web-based CRM applications and Google, whose Docs suite is an online alternative to Microsoft's Office suite. Web-based applications tend to be cheaper, easier to update, and require little installation since applications are delivered through a Web browser.

Raikes claimed during a keynote to about 3,300 customers and partners at its Convergence conference that only Microsoft can deliver "the best of the traditional software model in combination with software as a service."

Later, Raikes said Google realized its Web-based applications need further enhancement on the desktop by introducing Google Gears, a set of open source tools to build applications that can run offline and then sync when a computer comes back online.

"It's fascinating to me to see that even some of those companies now are trying to backtrack on what we've been saying and to offer things like Gears in order to be able to be offline and or take advantage of global computing power," Raikes said. ...

Source : InforWorld.com

Computable: Microsoft combineert software met services

Bas Paumen geeft uitleg over de aankondiging van Microsoft rondom Software + Services :

... De opkomst van Software as a Service krijgt nu ook erkenning van Microsoft, dat kortgeleden nieuwe online diensten voor zakelijk gebruik onthulde. De Office-producent koppelt de services echter wel aan zijn software.

Bas Paumen, product solutions manager bij Microsoft Nederland: "Het is niet zo dat we het Office-pakket nu als online-dienst aanbieden." De algemene indruk op internet was dat Microsoft nu eindelijk de stap naar SaaS zet, mede onder druk van online-kantoorapplicaties van Google en nu ook Adobe. De softwareproducent koppelt de geboden online-functionaliteit vooralsnog aan zijn Office-pakket.

Office Live Workspace, voor het online opslaan en delen van documenten, is toegankelijk voor gebruikers van Office 2003 en 2007. Mensen die die software niet hebben, kunnen wel uitgenodigd worden voor Live Workspace, maar krijgen dan alleen leesrechten.

"Workspace is vanaf eind oktober beschikbaar, als bèta, maar de software is in wezen wel af", vertelt Paumen. Hij stelt dat het dus meer een ‘internet-bèta' betreft, zoals de diensten van Google, dan een ‘Microsoft-bèta'. De lancering van de uiteindelijke versie verwacht hij begin 2008. ...

Source: Microsoft combineert software met services
Author: Date Published: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 09:51:29 GMT

Microsoft's Office Live Workspace

Here are a few screenshots of Microsoft's Office Live Workspace. The beta will start soon ...

... Microsoft last month announced plans for Office Live Workspace, a free online tool for viewing Microsoft Office documents. On Wednesday, Microsoft shared a few screenshots of what the service will look like when it goes into beta later this year. ..

More screenshots at source : News.com