Sabeer Bhatia Intros Live Documents True to all the buzz for the last couple of days, Sabeer 'Hotmail' Bhatia has gone and launched "Live Documents", described as a 'hybrid online-offline Office suite of applications.
The launch was announced today by InstaColl, the Bangalore-based software product company co-founded by Sabeer Bhatia. "Live Documents" is a full-featured suite of online Office productivity applications offering functionality equivalent to Microsoft's desktop applications -- Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The product has been built using RIA technologies such as Flash and Flex, and allows users to view and edit documents within any common browser on any operating system (OS) -- from anywhere. The user interface (UI) is Flash-based, and promises a richer, more responsive user experience comparable with native Office software applications. Another option is the availability of "Live Documents" as a desktop client application (optional), which wraps around Microsoft Office, and embeds collaborative capabilities into hitherto stand-alone software applications. Meaning, in this case, "Live Documents" transforms static, stand-alone Microsoft Office applications into smart clients that are Internet- connected and facilitate simultaneous multiple editing of singular documents plus management, sans users having to give up familiar user interfaces. As desktop client, "Live Documents" also offers offline access to documents, the lack of which is considered a major weakness with current online Office applications. Simply put, "Live Documents" is an application which gives users the flexibility to work on their documents -- either on their desktops or on their browsers. And, whether they are online or offline, any changes made either ways, would get automatically synchronized on both ends, ensuring that desktop- and Web- versions are always in-sync. Also with "Live Documents", data can be exported to blogs and Web sites. And the application is compatible with all available Office suites. "Live Documents is the new productivity suite for the Internet generation, providing flexibility lacking in traditional software while retaining that which is important from the past and extending it with unique collaborative capabilities. I believe that 'Live Documents' does for documents what Hotmail did for email," said Sabeer Bhatia, chairman of InstaColl. Quizzed about the similarity to 'Google Docs', Bhatia quipped that 'Google Docs' is way too primitive, and that the compatibility offered by "Live Documents" is almost that of Microsoft Office 2007 unlike in 'Google Docs'. 'Google Docs' is like a watered-down version of an Office suite, whereas "Live Documents" is an enhanced version, he said. Meanwhile, starting today, a technology preview "Live Documents" is available on an invitation basis at http://www.live-documents.com. General availability is expected to follow shortly. "Live Documents" is free for personal use, with commercial versions made available for enterprises in hosted form and on-premise server. An offline version of "Live Documents" will be made available in a couple of months. Those who wish to sign-up for a free "Live Documents" account, click on: http://www.live-documents.com. Now you can chat without downloading messenger. Go to http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
