Microsoft Office 2010 Adds to Microsoft-Google Battle

With Google’s claim to reinvent the traditional operating system through Chrome OS, they have caught the Internet market’s attention when they said Chrome OS would be entirely focused on the Web. Now, Microsoft is returning with a surprising feature on their new version of Office 2010.

Among its many improvements, updates, and upgrades, Office 2010 has another unexpected feature putting it in line of Google’s fire. Office 2010 will be offering a browser version of Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and OneNote. Obviously, the Web versions of Office won’t have as many awesome features as the desktop versions, but they will still have basic, necessary items for editing.  

We have talked about Outlook 2010 before and found it not satisfying. However, new insider information says that the updated version of Outlook will provide features making navigation and cleaning easier for users. Microsoft Office Word has received a few updates to accommodate for multiple editors. When more than one person is editing the same document on the desktop version of Word 2010, the program will notify each user when synchronization needs to take place. Also, copy and paste will let a user preview the copied item before pasting.

Excel and PowerPoint are both available in browser and desktop forms. So for Excel and PowerPoint, desktop projects can be converted (or carried over) to the browser version for easier access in e-mails, etc. Within Excel for the desktop, trend lines can be created in cell boxes to fit selected data. PowerPoint has been updated with video and picture features making it very similar to Apple’s iMovie and a simplified Photoshop.

Microsoft’s decision to convert to a browser version of Office 2010 is probably a smart move for them. In the ongoing rivalry between Microsoft and Google, this is a clear stab at Google’s Chrome OS. Google’s Chrome OS announcement and Microsoft’s Office 2010 announcement were only six days apart! The Google/Microsoft battle continues…