Why is Microsoft developing web apps?

The experience of using Microsoft Office can now be extended to your web browser with the use of Microsoft Office Web Apps which will enable you to work with your documents right on the document-storing website. These can be used personally in SkyDrive, on SharePoint sites by organizations installing and configuring the apps and they can also be used by businesses and professionals who have subscribed and selected the services of Office 365. Almost all widely used browsers support them.

Documents presenting information through collection of thoughts can be created by Microsoft Office and these documents are generally stored on computers or servers or removable storage device. But you can now store those documents in a new way so that viewing and editing them can be easily done in the browser with the help of these apps. This is in a way, almost as functional as Google Docs and according to analysts it is indeed aimed for countering the Docs in short term. However, there have been no clear long-term indications on the strategy for these apps.

It must be remembered that real-time collaboration made Docs popular and Office did not possess that feature. It is only recently that Microsoft has started to roll out enhancements to these apps which included collaborative real-time document editing. Before this you edit documents but the changes had to be saved first before they could be seen by others. With the introduction, Microsoft has to maintain a fine line between offering too much functionality and not offering enough so that it can compete well with Google.

The Web Apps are free of charges but Office 365 which is a subscription-based software service also include them. This collaboration acts as a defense against defections of customers to Google Apps which are mainly used for business purposes at $50 per year per user. On the other hand Office Web Apps and Office 365 plans cost around $60 annually for small businesses and $96 annually for larger firms. However, except as a counter for the Docs the main purpose behind the introduction is debatable as little has been done on the promotional front during its initial phases. In fact, few people knew about its existence.

It has been implied by officials of Microsoft that it has intentions of using the Web Apps eventually as substitute for Office. However, this implication is not feasible according to most experts as Office is an extremely powerful tool which acts as a pillar of a profitable business, a franchisee that generates a core revenue involving many other products as well. So the apps will no doubt be important but it will be better if they remained as complements to Office. According to some this step is to add more value, power and relevance to SharePoint. Others however argue that this step is to maintain the relevance of Office, especially for those consumers who have not installed Office. Those consumers may be prompted by browser-based programs to look for some more storage space which is sold by Microsoft as SkyDrive. This addition adds value to SkyDrive with some perhaps even becoming paid customers of it.

However, despite the many functions of these apps there are some problems associated with them which should be rectified. Word Web app should have auto-save feature ad not document-recovery feature. The connection problems should be fixed as well; there are times when the documents cannot be saved or during typing you find a problem with the spell-checker. There are a few other minor problems which when fixed will truly make the user-experience a memorable one and make them at par with Google Docs which seems to be the main competition.

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