Death Match continues…

Microsoft office faces a tag team of Google docs, open office, and a new contender LIVE DOCUMENTS

The war never seems to end for Microsoft. It looks like a lone warrior in the battle where the enemy keeps coming and coming. It kills one and another rises just behind him. Microsoft office suite is facing some stiff competition. It all started with Sun Microsystems' open office. Then came open document format by Adobe. This war heated with the entry of Google with Google docs. On top of that companies keep finding vulnerabilities in the Microsoft suite.

Security vendor Symantec noticed a vulnerability crop up on Wednesday, just one day after the patches were released, that can crash every single version of Word except the newest version, Word 2007. The vulnerability comes in the form of a Word document and includes shell code with three pieces of malware attached to it.

- tech.blorge.com

On the Google front they keep improving Google docs competitively . Latest has been adding 12 new languages. To compete this microsoft came up with Office Live. The Microsoft Office Live Works, which is set to be launched is aimed more at consumers and small business users (rather than corporations) who want access to their documents online from any computer using any browser. Office Live Works operates as a stand alone application separate from the desktop Office application.

Office Live Work’s has the following three key features:

• Access Anywhere - freely store up to 1,000 Office documents which can be accessed in any computer using any browser.
• Share with others - collaborate with your colleagues, networks and friends and control how much they can do with your documents.
• Works directly with Microsoft Office - open and save files directly from Word, Excel and Powerpoint, synchronize contact, task, and event list with Outlook.

From the looks of it, Microsoft Office Live Works could very well give Google Docs a run for its money. Now there's a new competitor in the boxing ring Sabeer Bhatia's latest venture Live Documents. So far, Live Documents includes equivalents to Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Besides offering standalone online Flash-based versions of the applications, InstaColl also offers downloadable applications which “wrap around” Microsoft’s applications to convert them to Live Documents clients.

[So what's Live Document about?

Uses RIA technologies such as Flash and Flex.Flash-based user interface that offers a richer user experience.

Allows users to view and edit documents within any common browser on any operating system from anywhere.

And the best part ->Live Documents is available as a optional desktop client application that wraps around Microsoft Office and embeds collaborative capabilities into these hitherto standalone software applications - Live Documents converts Microsoft Office applications from static standalone software to smart clients that are connected to the Internet and facilitate in-context document sharing and management without requiring users to give up their familiar user interfaces.]

- news.digitaltrends.com

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Death Match