Microsoft Office 2010 slated for June launch: battle over what to hold back from web app

A Microsoft spokesperson has confirmed Office 2010 will launch in June of 2010. One of the new directions for Office 2010 will be a web apps component, allowing users to access a limited Word or Excel experience online and is expected to be free. Microsoft sounds concerned about walking the fine line between usability and getting users to pony up for features they feel they need in the installed version.

From betanews:
“The key to what will and what won’t be in the Web Apps is really based on customer feedback and usage scenarios,” Janice Kapner, Microsoft Communication Director told us. “So if you think about it, we have 500 million users, we talk to them a lot about what it is they do and don’t do, and will and won’t do. This is our first shipment of the Web Apps, but we’ve been very realistic about how we think people will use these things, and try to supply features and functionality that will support those usage scenarios.” As an example, Kapner cited a case of remote users being able to check the progress of a PowerPoint presentation being constructed by the team at home, via a Web browser on a PC or mobile phone.

Facing pressure from Google, who offers their web applications for free in the cloud, Microsoft’s web apps are late to the game. Just how crippled the web versions of the gold standard for business document processing will be remains to be seen. We’ll know in June. In addition to a web app version, Office will also come in a crippled downloaded Starter version.

Read [betanews]