Windows Live Office

Windows Live Office is a part of Microsoft's Windows Live service that allow users to upload their Microsoft Office documents to the computing cloud and share them with other users. Users can also create, view and edit Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents from a web browser using the integrated Office Web Apps. The service utilizes Windows Live ID to limit access to the documents the user has uploaded, allowing them to keep the documents private, share with contacts, or make the files public.
This service is based on Windows Live SkyDrive and utilizes SkyDrive's storage space for the online storage of documents. Hence similar to SkyDrive, this service also currently offers 25GB, with a maximum upload file size of 50MB. The service also integrates with Microsoft Office 2010 where users may save their files directly onto Windows Live SkyDrive within the application's "Backstage view".
Windows Live Office was released as part of the Windows Live "Wave 4" update on June 7, 2010.
Features
Windows Live Office provides the same basic functionality as Windows Live SkyDrive such as the ability to move, copy and delete files and folders. Documents may be uploaded into different folders as in SkyDrive.
In addition to the common SkyDrive functionalities, Windows Live Office also provide the ability to:
* Allow users to create, view and edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents directly within a web browser using Office Web Apps without losing document fidelity
* Allow users to share the documents and have multiple users simultaneously co-author Excel and OneNote documents directly within the web browser using Office Web Apps
* Allow multiple users to simultaneously co-author Word, PowerPoint and OneNote documents using the respective Microsoft Office 2010 desktop applications
* Allow users to view the version history of the Office documents and restore to a previous version
* Integration with Windows Live Hotmail where users can:
** Directly upload Office documents within Hotmail, store them on Windows Live SkyDrive, and share the documents with other users
** Directly save Office documents within Hotmail to Windows Live SkyDrive, and view or edit these documents directly within the web browser using Office Web Apps
** Allow Hotmail users to edit Office documents within the web browser using Office Web Apps, and reply directly back to the sender with the edits made
History
Microsoft originally released Office Live Workspace in December 2007 as a free service for storing and sharing documents online. The original intention for Office Live Workspace was for work, school, and home projects such that documents may be managed from remote locations without a flash drive, and the service was available in over 25 languages. With Office Live Workspace, files or workspaces could be shared with up to 100 people. Use of a workspace was enhanced by Silverlight, a cross-platform web browser plug-in that allows users to upload multiple documents and collaborate with others on a workspace. In order for files and workspaces to be accessed directly from Office applications, users of Word, Excel and PowerPoint in Microsoft Office XP, 2003, 2007 or 2008 for Mac must install an Office Live Add-In from Microsoft. Users were also able to synchronize their contact, task, and event lists with Outlook 2003 and 2007, and workspace lists could be exported to Excel.
However, Office Live Workspace lacked features such as high fidelity document viewing, and did not allow files to be edited from within the web browser. Office Live Workspace also did not offer offline collaboration and co-authoring functionality — instead documents were "checked out" and "checked in," though the service did integrate with SharedView for real-time screen sharing.
On January 23, 2009, Microsoft announced that Office Live services would be converged into Windows Live services. On May 13, 2010, Microsoft announced Windows Live Office would replace Office Live Workspace, and users of Office Live Workspace would be automatically migrated to Windows Live Office beginning June 2010. All of the user's existing workspaces, documents, and related sharing permissions would be available directly within Windows Live SkyDrive after the migration.

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