Articles about Office Online

Do you ever see people working at Starbucks and think they are sort of pretentious? Understandably, seeing someone working in public is weird, but there is actually a lot of sense being made here. As someone who works in Starbucks almost every day (yeah, really), I can attest to the fact that it is a fabulous place for productivity. Obviously it has coffee and free Wi-Fi, which are the biggest pluses, but the overall atmosphere is conducive for work too. Since it can be a neutral meeting place, there is no awkwardness in ending a meeting and leaving -- it is very casual.

Today, Microsoft releases the Starbucks for Outlook Add-in. This is a marriage made in heaven, as coffee and Outlook are two of the most important things from a productivity perspective in many businesses. This add-in for Outlook lets you easily schedule a meeting at the famed coffee shop.

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Shutterstock is now making it easy to find and add quality photos to your Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, as it just launched a new add-in for the popular software that lets you explore and buy images from its vast collection.

"We know our customers are frequently using images to enhance their PowerPoint presentations", says Microsoft corporate vice president of Developer Experiences Steven Guggenheimer. "With this Microsoft Office 365 PowerPoint add-in, Shutterstock is broadening our ability to enhance productivity through its collection of high-quality imagery to professional users".

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OneDrive, Microsoft's cloud storage solution, is more than just a safe backup for your files. It's also home to the company's online version of Office. Users can access Word, Excel, and more all for free from right there on the website.

The company is also the proud owner of what is, arguably, the top communication app, in the form of Skype. The question when Microsoft purchased Skype was "How will it use this?" Gradually those answers have come around and now there is another instance of the technology being leveraged.

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Dropbox is no longer the only non-Microsoft cloud storage service that integrates with Office Online, as enterprise-focused rival Box now also makes this feature available to its customers, taking advantage of Office 365 -- Cloud Storage Partner Program. Box already integrates with Office mobile, allowing smartphone and tablet users to easily create and edit Excel, PowerPoint and Word documents that are stored on its servers.

It is a win-win for both companies. Box gets to give its customers easy access to one of the best online office suites around and become more attractive to potential customers, while Microsoft gains more Office Online, and potentially more Office 365, users in the process. Let's see what this integration brings to the table.

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Office Online is great for creating simple documents, presentations and spreadsheets, as well as doing some light editing, while maintaining compatibility with the full-blown version of Office. The web suite may not be as powerful, and that's fine. Not everyone needs the most advanced features that Office has to offer.

Still, Microsoft has been working hard on improving Office Online, to make it even more powerful and refined. The latest update, which is available now, adds more depth to the features offered by the web suite.

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Accessibility features in regular applications are now very much par for the course, but it's something of a different matter when it comes to online apps. While a growing number of websites have been designed to better meet the needs of people with sight or hearing problems.

The gradual move to the cloud means there are more and more online apps springing up, but many of them are slow to embrace accessibility options. Today Microsoft announces that Office Online -- the web-based version of its famous office suite -- has gained a number of key accessibility features designed to make it easier to use.

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What was once the crown jewel of software, Microsoft Office, has arguably been devalued by free offerings. It used to be that when you bought a computer, you pretty much had to buy Office too. Sure, some people got by with the low-rent Works package, but that was not the same. Let's be honest though, most home users only ever used Word, so for these users, many features and programs were for naught.

Unfortunately, the gravy train of overselling home customers has dried up for Microsoft. Don't get me wrong, Microsoft Office is still the best choice for many large businesses. However, many home users can get by without it, thanks to Google Docs and the like. It is up to Microsoft to keep it relevant and desirable. The company is actually doing a good job in this regard, by releasing it for iPad and making it affordable with a 365 subscription. Today, the company does the unthinkable and publishes Office Online to the Chrome Web Store.

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After launching SkyDrive replacement OneDrive yesterday, Microsoft announced, today, Office Web Apps is also out of its cloud lineup and, instead, Office Online is here to take its place. To prove that the change is not for change's sake, the software giant designed the new suite to be easier to find, with other new features also being offered.

Office Online takes a first step in the right direction, as it is available directly from Office.com, unlike the now-defunct Office Web Apps which users had to access via SkyDrive. The former's address is easy to remember and, indeed, makes it easy to find. And it is not just Office Online available there, but also Outlook.com and the complementary Calendar, People and OneDrive. More consumer-facing, cloud-based Microsoft services listed in one place is a clever strategy, especially when it is combined with a streamlined page design. Marketing starts there for the online version of Office.

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