In just over 100 days since Office Web Apps launched, more than 20 million people in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Ireland have used them – including Hotmail, Office 2010, and SkyDrive.
With more than 25,000 comments so far, we're releasing more new features today, shaped directly by your feedback. And, we're making Office Web Apps available in 7 more countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Russia, and Switzerland.
How people are using Office on the web
When Office Web Apps launched in June, a big focus for us was bringing the Office Web Apps right to your inbox – since this is where most people collaborate on documents today. We also focused on making sure that people could collaborate in the cloud without destroying the formatting of their existing documents.
To share some of what we have learned since launch, I’ll use one of our newest features, PowerPoint embedding.
As you can see, over 90% of online docs were first created in Office on the desktop. And people using Hotmail or Office 2010 are rapidly adopting new ways to share and access their existing docs.
New features
Since launch, we’ve been working hard to listen to you and deliver the features you need. Starting today, those new features are available to everybody, including people who live in the new supported regions.
Jump right in to the Office app you love
While using the Office Web Apps has been popular, we’ve heard from you that you often want to take advantage of the full power of Office on your desktop. We’ve made this easier than ever before – you’ll now see “Open in [Office app]” when you’re browsing your files, letting you jump in quickly. Since over 90% of documents on SkyDrive were first created in Office on the desktop, we hope this new feature will make it easy to bring your document back to your desktop for additional editing.
Embed Excel and PowerPoint documents on your blog or website
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s a great PowerPoint presentation or Excel chart worth? You can now embed public PowerPoint presentations and Excel workbooks on your blog or website. When you embed presentations, people can also view your presentation in full screen mode with all of your animations and transitions. And when you embed Excel spreadsheets, you can update data in Excel on the desktop, and your spreadsheet will automatically be updated on the web. You can even publish interactive PivotTables and forms (view handy tips & tricks here).
For instructions and a video on embedding, please visit The Office Blog.
View Word, PowerPoint and now Excel docs on your phone
Earlier this summer we launched the ability to browse and view your Word and PowerPoint documents on your mobile phone. We’ve now added Excel workbooks to that list, so you can view those charts and tables while on the go, wherever you are.
And of course, we’ve fixed bugs you’ve told us about, made improvements across the board, and generally improved the performance and reliability of your experience.
Finally, we’re making Office on the web available to people in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Russia and Australia, in addition to the markets we already support. (Also, people who are using Office 2010 get access immediately, regardless of where they are.)
Over the coming weeks, we’ll also be rolling out Hotmail updates in those same markets. Not in a region we support just yet for these features? You can get early access by going to this link.
Jason Moore
Principal Lead Program Manager, Windows Live SkyDrive
More...