Microsoft launches Office Web Apps for SkyDrive

After Microsoft released to the public the preview version of Office 2013 a few days ago, now the company announced today the launch of Office Web Apps for SkyDrive. "The Office Web Apps extend your Office experience to the web allowing you to access, edit, and share your Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote documents in a web browser," said Mike Morton, Group Program Manager for Office Web Applications.

According to the post on the Office Next blog, the new Office Web Apps allow users to access Office documents stored on SkyDrive with any device that has a web browser. "The Office Web Apps have embraced HTML5. They run in virtually all modern browsers and do not require the user of plug-ins (e.g. ActiveX, Flash, Silverlight). This includes Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. We've also optimized the Web Apps to run on a variety of new form factors including tablets and smartphones." Users can sign up for this new service by either downloading the Office 365 Preview version, or by signing into a SkyDrive account via this special link.

Microsoft launched the first version of Office Web Apps in June 2010. For the launch of the SkyDrive version, Microsoft made many improvements to the web software suite. That includes better authoring tools, adding touch support, support for better co-authoring including PowerPoint and improved performance. One other feature that stands out is the new commenting ability. "While co-authoring is great, we've found many people want to give feedback to others on a document without directly 'editing' the document. It is now possible to do this via comments in documents and presentations. The comments allow for replies, are designed to be viewable in the document with less distraction, and have the ability to be 'marked done' once incorporated in the document."

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