A Closer look at Microsoft Office 14 And Its Web Apps

Files can be stored either locally or online - with automatic syncing done through Microsoft's Live mesh technology - and during the PDC event, a demo showed two Microsoft employees modifying a Onenote document simultaneously from a Onenote application and from a web-based Onenote app.

Microsoft says that more than one million people have turned to Office Live Workspace to share and collaborate on the web and with lightweight versions of Office applications now available, this number is bound to grow significantly.

A press release from Microsoft says that it will be investing heavily in the software plus service concept (note : that's software AND service, not software AS A service, that's an important nuance).

Microsoft has already said that it might launch an ad-funded, online version of Microsoft Office (or Microsoft Works), called Albany. But then, if Google can do it without ads and deliver more functionality, then the Redmond-based software company will have to up its game soon.

Viewing a Word document in Word Web application.

Editing a Word document in Word Web application.