Microsoft nonetheless has however to release the technologies preview test create of its Office Web Apps that's slated for some time in August. However the firm is sharing some extra details beforehand of its release about how Silverlight will “light up” the Webified versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.Microsoft officials first discussed the organization;s plans to deliver a Web-ified version of Workplace at the Professional Developers Conference in October, 2008. Microsoft officials have said they plan to release Office Internet Apps, which are designed to complement, not replace,
Microsoft Office Pro Plus, client-based Office, at the same time as Workplace 2010 launches (around May/June 2010, last I heard).Workplace Web Apps will allow users to view and edit the aforementioned four Workplace apps from their PCs, phones or anywhere there;s an Net Explorer 7 or 8 (on Windows),
Microsoft Office Home And Student 2010, Safari 4 (on Mac) or Firefox 3.5 (on Windows,
Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007, Mac or Linux) installed.But as the Workplace Web Apps team has been saying since last fall, only those users accessing those apps from IE on Windows, with the Microsoft Silverlight IE plug-in installed, will get certain advanced viewing capabilities. In a blog post on August 5, the Office Web Apps team, for the first time, provided some examples of what “lighting up” with Silverlight will mean to the forthcoming Web-ified Office users running IE on Windows. (Note: as one reader noted in the comments below, Microsoft doesn;t say IE on Windows. The post only says IE.)Under a subhead to his pots entitled “Not all browsers are build equal,” Gareth Howell, Program Manager, Office Internet Apps,
Office 2010 License, blogged: “The Office Web Apps will work well without any plugins installed, but they get even better if you have Silverlight.”He noted that Word Web App, when used with Silverlight, will provide:* Faster load performance, “since typically fewer bytes need to be downloaded before showing the document.”
* Improved text fidelity at 100% zoom. “This includes better text spacing and rendering.”
* “Greatly improved” text fidelity at other zoom levels not 100%. “Text will respect settings set in (C)leartype tuner, so you’re able to determine how a great deal (if any) (C)leartype you’d like to see. The Cleartype tuner is available on the internet for older versions of Windows, and is included in
Windows 7.”
* Improved accuracy of hit highlighting in Find.PowerPoint Web App, when used with Silverlight, will provide smoother animations and “the slide will scale with the browser window size,” Howell said. He added, “(h)owever Silverlight is not required for rendering or animation.”Microsoft officials reiterated a month ago that Workplace Web Apps will come in free and paid flavors. The free version, for consumers, will be downloadable via Workplace Live. There will be two paid versions for organization customers: One will be hosted by Microsoft (as part of its “Online” family of offerings) and one hostable by home business users themselves. Many users nonetheless don;t realize that all three variants will be using SharePoint Server on the back end, and the enterprise variants will require users to purchase SharePoint in order to use the Webified Workplace apps.Update: Aha! What do you bet that Windows Live Documents might be the name for the consumer version of Office Web Apps? Microsoft,
Office 2010 Standard Key, after all, is munging Windows Live and Office Live together, as business officials acknowledged earlier this year….