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Microsoft Office Online
- codereflection 13y agoMore details here. Note this does not give you iOS or Android versions. http://techland.time.com/2014/02/20/microsoft-stops-hiding-offices-free-online-edition/ http://techland.time.com/2014/02/20/microsoft-stops-hiding-o...
- fournm 13y agoOneNote is included! Wow you have no idea how happy that makes me as a OneNote user since 2006 or so. It's my favorite part of Office.
- spartanatreyu 13y agoUnfortunately it's nowhere near the quality of the native versions and they only introduce small updates every quarter. Hopefully one day...
- MichaelGG 13y agoOneNote is awesome. I'd use it more, but I can't figure out a way to encrypt it while still getting sync. If they offered some built-in password protection, so that the contents were safely encrypted on-device and the hosting aspect just sync'd blobs, hey, awesome. They could even implement a differential update mechanism, just encrypt the deltas before uploading. (After careful review, since that might introduce some sort of crypto weakness.) I'd even be satisfied if some of the metadata wasn't encrypted. Otherwise, I don't feel comfortable in having a detailed, personal, life journal. I want something I could access from various devices and record internal thoughts, while minimizing the possibility of anyone including close friends, getting access. OneNotes default appears to be "hey, we'll drop this, unencrypted, in your Live sign-in default storage".
- marshray 13y agoWhat if you put your notebook file on a Bitlocker'd drive?
- MichaelGG 13y agoIt is Bitlocker'd, plus EFS'd (just in case my TPM gives up the keys - it's unclear if the password is mixed in to derive key material or not). And I'm getting a new SSD with "Encrypted Drive" support, so the keys are never in-memory (although again, I don't know if the key is just sitting in an easily-accessible chip on the disk, or if my password combines for key material). And then EFS on top of that, and each VM has its own encryption as well. So even a full compromise won't hurt the VMs I'm not using at the time. But it doesn't help since OneNote's online slick-access-from-anywhere, doesn't do crypto AFAIK. So all my transparent crypto protect my local device, but OneLook uploads the notebooks unencrypted to SkyDrive.
- bottompair 13y agoDaaaaaaamn you must have some awesome secret files!
- MichaelGG 13y agoNot particularly. Anything really secret I probably wouldn't put on that computer. I just don't see why other people should be allowed to access my data. The biggest win, I think is the internal "e drive" encryption, so that a RAM dump doesn't spill keys. That even somewhat mitigates Lightning DMA attacks. (Although the attacker could just hijack the OS at that point.)
- cl8ton 13y agoAgreed, OneNote is the main app we use to sync home/work desktop with mobile (were all Apple devices) and is dead nuts reliable. It has just enough features without feeling heavy to suit our needs.
- hayksaakian 13y agodoes this mean they finally see google docs as a real threat?
- rubiquity 13y agoThe constant replies of " Did X do Y because X views Z as a threat?" is approaching meme level.
- hayksaakian 13y agoWell i'd be hard pressed to believe Microsoft did it out of the goodness of their proverbial heart
- armastevs 13y agothey must, I can't see why anyone would pay when Google does just as good if not better
- bluthru 13y agoBoth Google Docs and Apple's iWork apps are free in the browser.
- 9248 13y agoA smart way of promoting their One/Sky Drive?
- jCanvas 13y agoDoes anyone know how they have implemented it? Looking at the page source there is lots of javascript involved, as you would expect. Are they using the DOM or a Canvas that fills the screen?
- sim0n 13y agoThe DOM.
- georgewfraser 13y agoIf you look at the network traffic it's very odd -- not only are the formulas being evaluated on the server, the server is shipping back DOM strings, not values. So it appears they are doing rendering on the server as well as calculation.
- yeukhon 13y agoThey should make Office free. These days, more and more non-techie friends are starting to use OpenOffice on their own. While OO quality is no where near Microsoft Office's, OO writer and Powerpoint are good enough for simple usage. And people, don't make fancy PP anymore. They just need something that can read ppt and something they can play.
- TsomArp 13y agoYeah, right. Office is MS cash cow. If they charged a reasonable amount for monthly use, that would be good. Lets say, 1 dollar per month. 3 dollar for 4 users family pack. That would be great.
- Steko 13y agoI got a license for home use from my company for a one time payment of under $10. So millions of people probably have a deal that's even better than what you're asking for.
- ekianjo 13y agoSame here. But I don't even use it and default to LibreOffice all the time (I only use Linux nowadays).
- Steko 13y agoOpposite case for me. In the past, anytime I had to use Libre/OpenOffice for more than 15 minutes made me feel like blowing my brains out.
- ekianjo 13y agoWell I've never really liked the new UI paradigm in Office 2007 and beyond: it's just very messy to do even simple things. With LibreOffice there are certainly some UI issues as well, but it's closer to Office 2003 in terms of how things are organized.
- miralabs 13y agolooks like a decision from Mr Satya?
- monkey26 13y agoIs there a catch? In theory I like it, but are the users now becoming the product?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- spullara 13y agoProbably the same as Google Docs.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- quasse 13y agoWas it not already? I've been using the online version of Office built into skydrive for more than a year now without a purchased copy of office. I think this is more of a renaming than a new offering.
- electic 13y agoNSA will have a lot more documents now in their collection to analyze.
- kevincrane 13y agoIt's like we're not even trying to avoid cliche comments any more.
- electic 13y agoIt's Tuesday night, it's late in SF. Still at the office. I felt MS Office Online should have been free from the start. So having a bit of fun, no need to be serious and write 5 paragraph comments analyzing the news, how you feel about the news, and how it impacts the industry. Sometimes being cliché is exactly what is in order.
- corysama 13y agoJokes on HN are strongly discouraged. As much as people like them, their presence creates a feedback loop that drives the noise-to-signal ratio through the roof. Jokes can be made, understood and voted up very quickly. In a democratic situation like HN, this leads to a large volume of replies and up votes that quickly drowns out all relevant conversation. The more threads that feature jokes, the harder it becomes to discourage them in the future. It seems the fate of all vote-based forums to eventually devolve into a sea of memes (HN -> Reddit -> Digg). HN's anti-humor downvote brigade gets a lot of pushback, but they are so harsh because they are doing their best to hold back that tide.
- kevincrane 13y agoNo, I like jokes, don't get me wrong. I'm just kind of sick of the NSA being dragged into subjects that don't warrant it.
- futurist 13y agoCliche? No, it's a reminder Microsoft sells it's users down the river. Maybe you don't, but some people actually speak up for their rights.
- sargun 13y agoWhoa. This is cool.
- owenwil 13y agoIt was also free when they announced it earlier last week...
- numo16 13y agoAnd free when it came out in 2009
- bruceb 13y agoOffice starter has been free and available for download for a while: http://www.downloadcrew.com/article/26083-microsoft_office_starter http://www.downloadcrew.com/article/26083-microsoft_office_s...
- footpath 13y agoAccording to Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Online> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Online>, Office Online (in its previous incarnation as Office Web Apps) has been free to public since 2010.
- ritchiea 13y agoMaybe the OP is a talented marketer at Microsoft
- erichurkman 13y agoI'm sure its no coincidence the Office Online team has an I Am A… scheduled for this Friday on http://www.reddit.com/r/iama http://www.reddit.com/r/iama
- skizm 13y agoThe title is still technically correct. The best kind of correct.
- edwardy20 13y agoI thought this was common knowledge. You could always use Word and Excel on Skydrive (now Onedrive).
- maguay 13y agoThe Office Web Apps, as they were called before, have been free ever since they were released in 2009 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Web_Apps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Web_Apps). They've just always been somewhat hidden inside Skydrive (which has also now been rebranded as Onedrive). This is nothing new, per se, just a launcher page that lets you directly access each of the web apps instead of having to launch the apps from inside Skydrive's file explorer.
- jhprks 13y agoYes!!! this is definitely ground breaking! with all the office applications being used in the companies world wide, Microsoft's move on making the online version free is definitely a game changer~!
- fpgeek 13y agoIs this a (belated) reaction to Google Docs being "good enough" for many use cases? We also just heard about Chrome OS pushing Microsoft to cut the price of Windows licenses for low-end laptops. Plus we have Nokia (soon to be Microsoft's smartphone division) releasing low-end handsets based on Android. These may all be reasonable strategic choices (I tend to think they're at least heading in the right direction), but put the picture together and it looks like Microsoft has been pushed into playing Google's game according to Google's rules. That usually doesn't end well.
- Cless 13y agoIntroducing Bing 2.0: Bingle.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Touche 13y ago> Is this a (belated) reaction to Google Docs being "good enough" for many use cases? Yes, but it was belated when this was released 4 years ago.
- obimod 13y agoI think they're starting to understand the pursuit of singularity and think (for good reason) that they have enough connections/money/data in the bag to reach for it. Google disclosed their pursuit for the first time in my knowledge recently on ACM. It would be an interesting read, their privacy policy, and whether they "collect information to enhance their service". Also the business intelligence is worth it's weight in gold.
- Zikes 13y agoBut, according to Microsoft if Microsoft Office is not explicitly installed on the machine then it's "just a brick"! [1] And when you use it, Microsoft will be able to track what you do, just like Google does! And we all know that those big bad corporations just can't be trusted. Except for Microsoft, of course. [1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57613803-71/microsofts-latest-scroogled-ad-chromebooks-a-brick/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57613803-71/microsofts-lat...
- glenntnorton 13y agoI use Sky/One drive primarily for work. The Excel app is pretty decent but the Word app blows. If you don't have Word installed, your feature choices can be pretty limited.
- stephengillie 13y agoI can almost use this on my phone...but since I can not paste my highly randomized password, from my password database, into their website. Why not? I don't know, I think paste is disabled by Javascript. Who the hell would think that is a good idea?
- teleclimber 13y agoI can't stand it when sites do that (blocking paste) but I don't think that is what's happening here. It's just their placeholder text "Password" that is messing things up. Try long-pressing just on the left of the 'P' of the placeholder. That worked for me after a few tries (on Android).
- nathantotten 13y agoWhich phone were you using? I don't think this is actually on purpose, but I just tried it on my iPhone and did find that it was inconsistent and difficult to paste a password. I am going to send some emails and see if we can figure out the issue. Let me know what kind of phone you are on.
- stephengillie 13y agoNexus 5, fully updated on chrome. The site looks great, and I'm excited to have free mobile spreadsheets.
- dpweb 13y agoand from Chrome bar https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/office-apps/jdbcdbdkiaadpbkggggekjcpmgjekkke?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/office-apps/jdbcdb...
- pcurve 13y agoExcel is very polished. Serious kudos to the development team. But where's my pivot table? j/k
- RRRA 13y agoFree as in beer, not as in free speech and still complete format lock in?
- neltnerb 13y agoHoly cow, this works on Ubuntu.
- camus2 13y agoLoving it, the stuff(Word/Excel) is ultra-fast, and aside from AMD, doesnt seem to be using any bloated js framework. Looks more like it's optimized to the max, with raw DOM manipulations. A big change from clunky Angularjs apps...
- cyanbane 13y agoIn proper MS marketing form I think there is a difference in two very similar products (and their names don't help the consumer at all). Office online is a web-based version of these popular apps (1:1 parity of OS software? I am not sure). There is also a $99 subscription model that allows you to install these apps for 5 computers (local OS software installs) + the benefits of these web apps + X gigs of One/Sky Drive + some Skype stuff. I have been a happy subscriber to the $99 version (with OS apps) and I have been very happy with the price point. Have pretty much moved over to OneNote from EverNote over the past year and also love the ability to have a local install of Excel, but be able to edit inline on the web when needed.
- roryokane 13y agoThe online apps don’t have 1:1 parity with the desktop software. For example, Word Online doesn’t allow creation of custom Styles, and Excel Online doesn’t support Pivot Tables. The subscription model you are thinking of is called Microsoft Office 365 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_365 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_365).
- bite 13y agoThis is great news for GNU+Linux users, I'm always so hesitant when installing libreoffice to my computer and use google drive when veiwing ppt files. In my opinion Microsoft office online loads ppt files a lot faster, which is nice. You also don't have to go full screen to view all the animations. Cool.
- philliphaydon 13y agoThis is awesome, no longer need to be subjected to Google Spreadsheets. Those things are terrible compared to EXCEL.
- patricelamond 13y agoAre you under the impression that Excel is some kind of abbreviation for something? Why else would you write it in all capitals?
- fakename 13y agoI tried to edit my resume, since I don't have Word on my personal laptop: formatting is inconsistent with standalone Word.
- nevi-me 13y agoWill it save my documents in a compatible format to Office 2013? I've had Excel documents go corrupt or unreadable on Excel desktop app. As much as I use Excel at work and home, I'm staying away from their online thing with most of my work. Been burnt enough
- ConceptJunkie 13y agoYou can save an Excel document in Excel and immediately re-open it and have Excel complain the document is corrupted. It's happened to me dozens of times (back when I was required to do Excel development a couple years ago... it was like a flashback to 1990). Anyhow, every time it happened, there was no apparent damage to the document. I think this stems from Microsoft having to be insanely aggressive in defending against their own bugs.
- girvo 13y agoI just wish the Tasks/To-do portion of Outlook.com/Live Calendar would sync to anything on a Windows 8 desktop. My girlfriend has a WP8 phone and a Windows 8 laptop, and uses Live for all her PIM stuff -- but there isn't any way to get Live Calendar tasks/to-dos on her desktop. It works on her phone though, so go figure, and it also works in the web app. This is what frustrates me with Microsoft. They have cool features and neat applications, and the new integration across devices is awesome... but they miss these little details, and that ruins the experience quite a bit :(
- alien3d 13y agoi'm waiting for vbscript or excel macro to enable first. then can suggest customer back.
- rajeemcariazo 13y agoAgain, someone from HN hates Microsoft for removing this on top of hacker news after getting a hundred votes per hour
- crystaln 13y agoWhy was this "now free" removed from this subject of this submission??? That was the interesting part of this submission! :-/
- transitionality 13y agoIt was pointed out that it's been free since 2009, through SkyDrive, now OneDrive. This is just a new cover page/interface to the apps.
- crystaln 13y agoOk.. thanks. Perhaps changing it to "Microsoft Office Online free no longer hidden" would have been more appropriate. Linking to just "Microsoft Office Online" gives no sense of the purpose of the post. Not that it matters at this point. Just seems rather pedantic to change the title in such a way.
- mrtimuk 13y agoSomeone just skyped me and the office.com tab is now flashing with their name in my browser. I'm not sure how to acknowledge the notification or read the message - any ideas?