Microsoft on Monday posted a "public" beta of Office Live Workspace, cloud-based functions that it said complement its on-premise Office franchise. The beta is available to pre-registered users. The company line is that Workspace "provides an easy way for people to save their Office documents and other files to the Web, and then to share their work and collaborate with others," said Kirk Gregersen, Office director of consumer and small business product management in a posted Q&A.
Microsoft has posted an array of Office-labeled capabilities as part of its "software plus services" Live portfolio. Many are responses to "cloud-based" offerings available from Google, Zoho and others. A good list of the Live offerings is available on LiveSide. With this beta, Microsoft is starting to put some meat around the bones of its Office Live promises from two years ago.