Microsoft considering “Live” version of Works

There’s been much speculation over the last year if Google or Microsoft would develop an online version of Office. Neither company has said that that’s their goal, however, Google already offers an online word processor (Writely) and spreadsheet app (Spreadsheets). Both products are a far cry from the feature-rich Office products though. The question has been, will Microsoft respond? Reuters is reporting today that they are considering it.

Quoting from the article, Microsoft General Manager Andy Yates says, we’re “thinking about how we might take advantage of new business models like advertising and other payment models, as well as new forms of distribution.”

Makes sense.

My only concern here is that Microsoft is considering to move Works online rather than its more powerful Office sibling.

In many respects, this seems quite reasonable. A “Live” version of a word processor or spreadsheet would surely be less sophisticated than the existing rich-client versions and Works already is known as a subset productivity suite. So using the Works brand for an online version would suggest that Office is a step up.

I’m not exactly keen on Works though. In fact, I’ve purchased systems in the past that have been bundled with Works and what did I do? I deleted it. I don’t need one more file format think about.

Further, as a Tablet PC user, Works has a major strike against it. There’s no ink support. And I can’t add it if I wanted to. Works is not extensible like Office products are.

In fact, I’d be disappointed if Works goes online and continues not to support ink. (Yes, there’s a much bigger issue looming here about how “first class” ink should be in the browser and any browser-based applications.)

It’s not just about ink though. There’s a bigger branding issue going on here. I’d sum it up this way: Works is to Office as MSN Search is to Google. The reputation isn’t there. I guess a Live version of Works might revive the Works brand. And it also might suffice to be a reasonable platform from which to initially experiment online. If things go well, a better, richer version of Office online could follow, much like MSN Search has grown into Live Search.

Before closing off this post, I’d like to repeat another concern I have about a browser-based “word processor.” Browsers are used so much for editing nowadays (for instance, editing emails and blog posts), that right now the browsers themselves need better editing features. There needs to be spell checking. There needs to be grammar checking. There needs to be temporary caching of what the user writes. Firefox is going the right direction here, by including spell checking in its latest version.

Point is, that at least in terms of editing, there needs to be more editing support in the browser right now. The brand managers can figure out whether this technology should be called Office-enhanced IE or Works-enhanced Firefox, but to me it’s just something the browser should have. I realize a full-blown word-processing application is something much bigger and different, but I can’t help but think that there are many more editing capabilities yet to add to the baseline browser.