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New Hotmail Integrates Office Features

Posted by StoneLion on from the you-can-dress-it-up dept.

angry tapir writes "Microsoft is set to begin rolling out the latest enhancements to its Hotmail (warning: interstitial ad) web mail service, with an aim to reduce clutter and make it easier to send photos and handle Office documents. Microsoft is making a Web-based version of Office available from within Hotmail's Web interface that allows use of Microsoft document formats such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote."

8 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Wannabee fools. by unity100 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    where were they up until google did it ? they realized to do this just now ? all they are doing is 'me too' for a long while now.

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    1. Re:Wannabee fools. by zkp · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, some of the features sound pretty useful to me. The claimed improvement (we will have to see, but it seems plausible) is that they do a better job integrating real office documents.

      From a security standpoint, I have often wanted to be able to generate something like a one time password when logging in through a public computer.

  2. Open Document by Elektroschock · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I usually use Linux and I want to avoid lock-in. Microsoft Office supports the OpenDocument format, so how about these Microsoft services? And with OpenDocument I mean the Oasis format, not OpenXML (which I don't trust to be suffiently interoperable).

  3. Losing by Jaysyn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Heh. Once again we have MS playing catch-up to Google. I thought Hotmail was turned into Windows Live or something like that anyhow.

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  4. Re:sigh... by dward90 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While it's true that Google supports more file types, it shouldn't be unreasonable to assume that Hotmail's integration with MS Office will be substantially more seamless.

    Google Docs is still pretty atrocious at handling any formatting quirks of Office file types, and given that MS Office is still the most popular suite to format things in (for better or worse), Hotmail could have a strong selling point above Google in this regard.

    *Disclosure* I use Google Docs almost exclusively for my academic and personal needs.

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  5. Late, yes... by Benfea · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...but I'm betting this will be a heck of a lot more robust than Google Docs. Competition is a good thing.

  6. One thing, OneNote by xtracto · · Score: 2, Interesting

    IFF, Microsoft offers the OneNote program online (for free) and manages to integrate it in a sensible way to Hotmail, I might be sold.

    Currently I am using Google Notebook (I was lucky to get an account before they closed the subscriptions) to organize my life. I have really tried to use other online alternatives (like Zoho) but they just do not feel right.

    On the other hand, the times when I have used OneNote, it has *really* impressed me. That is a really good program.

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  7. Re:ActiveX? by rampagea1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    To use Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta, your computer must meet one of the following requirements: 1) Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 running on Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Vista. You can download Internet Explorer from the Internet Explorer page. 2) Mozilla Firefox running on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, or Mac OS X 10.2.x and later. You can download Firefox from the Firefox download page. 3) Safari 3 and 4 on Mac OS X 10.2.x and later. No support for Linux... just Mac or Windows :(