2007 wasn’t very kind to Microsoft. Google, on the other hand, has persuaded most of the world to get a Gmail account and now is pushing its hosted solutions to workplaces everywhere. What’s Microsoft to do? Push its own alternative to Google Docs, of course. Say hello to Office Live Workspace Beta.

In the standard press spiel, Microsoft hails it as a service that “extends Microsoft Office, provides anywhere access to documents and enables sharing functionality”. Currently still in beta, users worldwide can just surf on over to http://workspace.officelive.com, sign up for free and start using the service immediately.

“Today’s announcement moves us further down the path of bringing a software plus services experience to people at home, work and school,” said Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division. “By combining the rich client experience of Microsoft Office with flexible, intuitive service offerings, we’re providing seamless computing experiences for our 500 million Office users worldwide.” Translation of press release-speak: we hope you’ll find us better than Google Docs since now we’re giving you the equivalent of Microsoft Office Online.

Office Live Workspace enables online collaboration and, Microsoft says, allows people to save more than 1,000 documents to one place online. Other features include an activity panel to show all the activity in a workspace at a glance, e-mail notifications, direct links and multiple file uploads at a time.

Microsoft claims hundreds of thousands have signed up for the beta already since the unveiling of the private beta in October. The office team has also enlisted the aid of U.S. learning institutions to willingly offer their students as guinea pigs i.e. beta testers. This is part of what Microsoft calls their Live@edu initiative. The Live@edu program has additional perks for students and alumni such as 5 GB inboxes, the equivalent in online storage space, calendars, blogging tools, and mobile access to these services. The University of Wisconsin-Parkside is convinced enough to roll out Office Live Workspace campuswide.

And to entice more people into using it, Microsoft is even launching a $100,000 sweepstakes for U.S.-based Office Live Workspace users. The sweepstakes will give away about 30,000 prizes, including $100,000. The sweepstakes will run through May 11, 2008; the winner will be decided around May 15, 2008. Other prizes include Xbox 360 Elite Video Game Systems, Samsung Blackjack II Smartphone devices, 30GB Zune players, Expedia hotel and package coupons and Microsoft Office Professional 2007. Want in on the ‘incentives’ to dump Google Docs? Surf on over to http://www.officelive.com/workspace/sweepstakes.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 11:23 am under Microsoft.

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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