Microsoft Office for Internet and smartphones

On October 28, Microsoft officially confirmed that Office office packages will have two new versions, including an online version of the Internet and a smartphone-specific version of the Windows Mobile operating system.

Chris Capossela, senior vice president in charge of Microsoft business, said the two new versions of Office will have only four key applications, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Expected Office Web and Office for Windows Mobiles will be officially launched at the same time with the next version of Office for PC - codenamed Office 14 - around the end of next year.

Later this year Office Web was officially put into testing. Also yesterday Microsoft demonstrated Office Web with the developer community to attend the 2008 PDC Professional Developer Conference, which is being held in Los Angeles (USA).

Mr Capossela said the Office Web would solve two problems that other competitors such as Google Docs or Zoho Docs have so far proved helpless.

First, Office Web will give users a completely new experience that is different from other competing products. Formatting (formatting) tasks and platform structure data (metadata). And second, Office Web will be a great end-to-end solution that allows end users to browse and edit files anywhere whenever they want. Just need a web browser - like Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari - or a Windows Mobile smartphone.

'The future Microsoft may add a version of Office Web compatible with non-Windows Mobile smartphones, other web browsers or Mac Office. Microsoft's goal is to become the No. 1 office application developer in the world, " said Capossela.

Office Web will use additional Silverlight applications - a similar application to Adobe Flash - from Microsoft to add new features such as zooming or font preview. But this is not a mandatory additional application, users can install or not install is okay.

Mr. Capossela also added that the Office Web will not have some features like the desktop version. Microsoft does not use Office 2007 Ribbon interface for Office Web because it takes up a lot of space. Instead, Office Web will use the drop-down menu version of Office 2003 but has been edited a lot.

The Microsoft Office Web business model will be used again over time. Users will receive a discount if they accept to display ads. Meanwhile businesses can sign a license to use Office Web similar to Office for desktop PCs.

Mr. Capossela refused to disclose the exact service fee.