Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
News
Office Live Workspace Beta Released Internationally
5/23/2008
Microsoft this week released an international beta of its Office Live Workspace (OLW) suite of productivity tools. The company also quietly launched an Office Live Update last week that takes on performance issues and brings in some additional functionality when working with Office 2007, XP, and 2003.
Office Live Workspace is a Web-based suite of office tools that's designed to complement Microsoft Office and that includes features for online document sharing and collaboration. It was announced originally in October 2007, then went into private beta in December 2007. A worldwide beta launched in March 2008, but it had been limited to English only. The new release is now available in Spanish, French, German, and Japanese.
OLW is also a part of Live@edu, Microsoft's portal, communications, and collaboration suite for education. The integration of OLW allows users to upload Office files through the service and set permissions for colleagues--including instructors and students--to view and collaborate on assignments and other documents. Live@edu has been around since 2005 but only incorporated OLW in the last quarter of 2007.
Roughly coinciding with the international beta launch, Microsoft has also released Office Live Update 1.1 (previously called "Office Live Add-in"), which, according to the company, improves the performance of Office applications when working with OLW; adds new menu options (Office 2007) and toolbars (Office XP and 2003); and includes the Multiple Document Upload Tool for simultaneous upload of multiple documents and drag-and-drop support for file uploads.
Further information about Office Live Update 1.1, including system requirements and a download link, can be found here. Further information about the OLW international beta launch can be found here.
About the author: Dave Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's educational technology online publications and electronic newsletters. He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com.
Have any additional questions? Want to share your story? Want to pass along a news tip? Contact Dave Nagel, executive editor, at dnagel@1105media.com.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- Digital Arts Alliance Adds Fordham U
The Digital Arts Alliance, a consortium led by the Pearson Foundation that promotes digital arts in K-12 education, is expanding its membership with the addition of Fordham University. This follows on the heels of three other organizations joining the group back in July--the National Education Association (NEA) Foundation, the Foundation for Investor Education, and Employers For Education Excellence (E3).
- Payment Card Security Toughens with DSS 1.2 Release
Opinions are mixed on what the new Payment Card Industry (PCI) DSS 1.2 standard will mean for security pros going forward. However, the mandate is clear: protect data.
- 6 Universities Join NASA Astrobiology Institute
Research teams from six universities have been selected by NASA to become members of its Astrobiology Institute with the aim of exploring the "origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe." Teams were each awarded five-year grants, averaging $7 million each, according to NASA.
- Amazon To Host Microsoft Solutions in the Cloud
Amazon announced Wednesday that it is conducting a private beta test of Microsoft's server products running on Amazon's hosted computing platform, which is called Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Amazon expects to offer companies the ability to run their applications on EC2 using Microsoft Windows Server or Microsoft SQL Server sometime in the fall, according to an announcement issued by the company.
- CRM Pushing into New Areas of Higher Ed
Implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) solution can require "difficult or even painful behavioral challenges" for administrators in higher education, according to Nicole Engelbert, a lead analyst with research and analysis firm Datamonitor. "It means re-orienting yourself to your students. That can be tough, so you need to be ready for that."
- Integrated Collaborative Environment Leverages Web 2.0
Here's a bit of trivia for your next high-tech happy hour: A "nog" (in addition to being a Christmas favorite) is a wooden block built into a masonry wall so that joinery structure can be nailed to it. For the founders of Piscataway, N.J.-based startup Bluenog this obscure bit of carpentry nomenclature was the perfect metaphor for an integrated software suite that includes a content management system (CMS), rich portal features and business intelligence (BI) capabilities.
