Sabeer Bhatia brings Microsoft Office 2007 Online….for free!

Yesterday, I blogged about Sabeer Bhatia’s plan to launch something bigger than Hotmail. I had an inclination that to-be-launched product will be something like Zoho or Google Apps and voila, that’s what it is!

Sabeer Bhatia is getting complete Microsoft Office 2007 online.

Companies like Google Apps and Zoho are already revolutionizing this space, and with Sabeer Bhatia launching his online Office suite, It is finally nail in the coffin for Desktop Office 2007.

Its very simple now- If you are getting exactly the same application on Internet for free, why will anyone shell out $400 for a same desktop application?

Here are some of the highlights of Office live Documents:

• Access your documents on the web or on the desktop
• View and edit your documents from anywhere at any time in your browser in a rich user interface that provides the functionality and responsiveness that you expect in your familiar desktop applications.
• Use your existing desktop Office application (Microsoft Office currently and shortly Open Office) as a smart client that permits offline access to your document – the next time you go online, Live Documents automatically synchronizes all changes to ensure that there is a single version of the truth.

Here is the most interesting stuff:

Did you see the branding done for Live Documents ?

It is clearly a strategy for Microsoft buy-out. Using Live (the new avatar of Microsoft) name, the same icons and pushing it as Office online- without being affiliated to Microsoft.

Live Documents has every stamp of “Made by Microsoft”, although in reality it has been developed by bunch of engineers in Bangalore for Instacoll.

Here is a disclaimer on Instacoll site:

Statutory Disclaimer: While our products are built primarily around the Microsoft Office suite, Microsoft Corporation was not involved in any way in the development of these solutions and does not endorse them in any formal way.
(Note: That said, since Sabeer Bhatia is a co-founder, a very small part of the millions that he received from Microsoft for Hotmail.com funded our development efforts – so thank you Microsoft!).

Microsoft will buy out live documents within next couple of months ! Wanna bet ??

Author: Arun Prabhudesai

Arun Prabhudesai is founder / chief editor at trak.in. He jumped the Entrepreneurship bandwagon in early 2008 after a long 13 year stint in I.T Industry. You can follow him on twitter @trakin or get in touch with him at admin-at-trak-dot-in or 91.9822575676.

Related posts:

1. Do you know Sabeer Bhatia’s latest Internet venture?
2. GMail going offline? Impending death of Microsoft?
3. Microsoft trashes Zoho Office as Fake– Zoho does even better
4. Are Web Applications replacing Desktop Softwares?
5. Do you want a 100% free website with Domain Name ? You got it now !
6. The new look Microsoft!
7. Microsoft OneApp brings Smartphone features to Low end mobile phones
8. Free application suite that will change the way we work.
9. Zoho Business suite: Everything a Business user needs !
10. Will this new ‘Googly’ trump Microsoft once again?

Tagged as: Acquisition, google-Apps, Indian-startup, Live documents, merger, Microsoft Office Online, Office 2007, Zoho