Microsoft officially launches free online Office Web Apps

by Stevie Smith - Jun 9 2010, 06:50

Clearly keen to deflect the rising popularity of free rival productivity suites such as Sun Microsystem’s OpenOffice, software titan Microsoft Corp. has formally launched the free version of Office Web Apps through SkyDrive.

If you’ve often fancied using Microsoft Office, but have been left cold by the accompanying price tag, Office Web Apps offers free online versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft OneNote – enabling the creation, viewing, editing and sharing of documents.

And, thanks to being based entirely within the user’s Web browser, Office Web Apps also allows document access from anywhere through popular computer browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 or later, Mozilla Firefox v3.5 or later and Apple Safari 4 or later.

Microsoft has also confirmed that mobile browser support for Office Web Apps is provided by Internet Explorer on WinMo 5 or later, Safari 4 on iPhone 3G and 3GS, BlackBerry 4.x or later, Nokia Symbian S60, Netfront 3.4, 3.5 or later, Opera Mobile 8.65 or later, and Openwave 6.2, 7.0 or later.

Released for mass consumption after some nine months of invitation-only testing, the platform is now open to users in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland – and offers language support for English, Spanish (U.S.) and French (Canada).

According to Redmond-based Microsoft, more regions and languages will be added “over the coming months.”

Learn more about Office Web Apps, and put the suite through its paces, by clicking here.

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