A new service called Live Documents allows Windows PC users with Office already installed on their computer to synchronize documents across multiple users over the Internet. The service works currently with Word and Excel documents (other office applications are coming soon, they say) via a toolbar. While in beta, the service is free.
The creator of a document sets permissions of other users (read only, read-write, print permission, etc.) and emails out the file to them as they normally would. When the other users open the document all instances of the document across all users are syncronized regularly when users are online.
This is a powerful application that addresses one of the primary benefit of wikis and online Word clones like Zoho Writer and Writely - collaboration via the Internet. The functionality from the user perspective is very similar to Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server, which allows business users to collaborate on documents via a centralized Windows server. Unlike Sharepoint, Live Documents doesn’t store any documents on a server, and therefore doesn’t require you to have your own (very expensive) Windows server.
We’ve tested Live Documents on two PCs in our office and it worked flawlessly. We’re looking forward to a Mac version, as well as extended functionality for at least PowerPoint as well.
The next step for Live Documents should be to look for a partner amongst the online office players to make their service work across applications as well. When that happens, a Word user will be able to collaborate on a document real-time with a Zoho Writer user, for example, over the Internet.
It has a nice feature set. But I doubt whether people will use it for actual business work. Most companies prohibit transferring of company data on other servers.
THIS will be so helpful The real shock is that Microsoft did not think of this around the time of WinXP’s debut
Sounds like FolderShare, but FolderShare can be used with any file. I use it everyday for a geographically-dispersed small business venture. FolderShare is cross-platform and free.
Great little tool!
Just as Ebrahim Ezzy rightly said in a recent Read/WriteWeb article:
As the Web becomes increasingly interconnected and applications continue to blur the distinction between the desktop and web, we should expect to see more applications that allow Web/desktop synchronization. This will happen due to the increasing development of web services that enable apps to work equally well across web and desktop clients.
Not innovative and certainly not new. Novell’s iFolder service has been doing this for many years now.
As Nikola mentioned, this is a topic that is getting a lot of attention on R/WW right now
I’m keen to check out Live Documents, especially it got the big tick from Mr A.
Peter - Foldershare was acquired by Microsoft a year ago…
Very few behemoth companies innovate, they just buy out start-ups.
greta great stuff …
well good but PAID
The true comparison is not with Sharepoint but with Mirosoft’s Groove Live offering (wherever it is?).
Yes, Groove serves a very similar perpose, is peer to peer, secure, and works with any document. Not sure what the Live offering is but the current client has the advantage of letting you work on or offline, then sync up when others in your workgroup are online again.
Multiple users over the Internet=Collective Intelligence=Web 2.0
Would it be a good tool to use for example to review edit blog posts submitted by other writers before publication.
I tried Groove in the past and really liked it. Used it to collaborate with a few people, not everyone got the concept though.
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You say: ‘Peter - Foldershare was acquired by Microsoft a year ago…
Very few behemoth companies innovate, they just buy out start-ups.’
I’m aware of that, but how is that relevant? FolderShare is still a very useful product, regardless of whether Microsoft bought it or developed it themselves. I think it’s more useful than the product mentioned in this article, since it supports all file types.
All foldershare needs is versoning and the ability to “check out” files and it would be a must have for anyone.
this requires an additional 3MB client download in addition to needing Office. Hardly the Web 2.0/Office 2.0 that crowd looks for.
Re Groove Live: http://www.groove.net/index.cf.....Beta_FAQ#3
“The next step for Live Documents should be to look for a partner amongst the online office players to make their service work across applications as well. When that happens, a Word user will be able to collaborate on a document real-time with a Zoho Writer user, for example, over the Internet.”
Dude, are you new here?
Based on past behavior a better statement might be :
“The next step step is for Live Documents to systematically kill off all the other players by making sure their stuff doesn’t interoperate. ”
High likelihood of subzero temperatures in hell before Microsoft voluntarily makes their documents interoperate with others.
Note: Even Groove was a Windows only, proprietary P2P protocol. So no, I don’t expect the Ozzie factor to make a difference to the interoperability equation.
extened is spelled wrong. Should be extended.
Funny, I forgot Groove existed…and I used to be a customer.
Michael,
Quite frankly, we didn’t expect you to even take a look at our product, much less write a great review - thanks a ton for your time and kind words.
In response to some of the comments made above:
Just for the record, this is NOT a Microsoft product - we are a small startup based in Bangalore, India - we are using the word “Live” in a generic sense (hope MS does not have a monopoly/legal claim on that term…)
Regarding the comments made about Foldershare, Groove, iFolder et al - while all of these are great products, Live Documents is significantly different from all of them in three ways:
a) All these solutions either require a server where the documents are centrally stored or alternatively have clearly-defined peer nodes where files need to be stored for file replication. In our case, the documents could reside anywhere on the edge- on any system, as a file attachment in your e-mail - or on a shared drive or web repositary - it does not matter as we synchronize the file only when it is actually opened in Microsoft Office.
b) All changes made to the document are audited and reported - so every document copy carries a full history of the changes that were made since the document was last opened. I am not sure if any of the file replication/synchronization services provide transparency to such a granular level.
c) We are attempting to get closer towards the Holy Grail of contextual collaboration - with the Live Document providing the context anchor within the applications that are used to create these documents. Collaboration happens in multiple dimensions from allowing users to assign and manage document-centric tasks like approvals and reviews from within the document context to conducting discussions around the documents through the embedded toolbar. In all of the solutions mentioned above, the documents are simply elements that flow in and out of the system and the collaborative elements are in a separate silo - collaboration happens “around the document” (either in a web browser or in a fat client) and not “within the document”.
Finally @ABCotaa - I am not sure if we qualify as a Web 2.0/Office 2.0 application - we are just hoping to provide a solution that people will find useful for document sharing…I hope you will agree that in the final analysis, solving a pain point is more important than conforming to the specifications of a meme…
Warm Regards,
Sumanth
Microsoft should build their next consumer OS on top of SharePoint. Your laptop would then become a content server for your mobile devices. I think data synchronization is just too difficult to be managed by the average computer user. A document should live at a single location with its own URL so that collaborative editing does not lead to merge conflicts that may need human interaction to resolve or to merge conflicts that end up being simply unresolvable.
Sumanth > Just by using those colors & huge buttons on Instacoll, you might qualify as a web 2.0 company…:)
Scott Said: “I think data synchronization is just too difficult to be managed by the average computer user. A document should live at a single location with its own URL”
Excellent points Scott, this is what we have found at Omnidrive. All the office apps have native WebDAV support so having a ‘file at a URL’ can be done without any plugins.
I also forgot about Groove, great product, looking forward to it being released again but we all know the acquisition was for Ray Ozzie.
Ahh…. my mistake …. Sounds like I am new here …..
The comparison with Microsoft Sharepoint and the confusing name …..
Sumanth, yes your company should expect a call from Microsoft legal department soon, ….. not kidding ….
One of the minority of recent web-based products which seems at first glance to be something truly useful.
As long as they keep it dead-simple, I’ll use it.
I work on massively complex Fortune 500 web applications, but when it comes to tools the simpler and more direct, the better.
heh they are getting ahead Ms own live desktop initiative….
but yeah zoho writer should be the one rushing to try and make a partnership with this.
Sorry for the mistake, Sumanth. I wrote that Live Docs was a Microsoft product, but fixed it as soon as Richard Black pointed out the mistake in a comment in my blog (Trackback #1). Now I just need to find a way to update my RSS feeds so that it pings the edited information to trackbacks and RSS feeds. Anyone have any ideas?
All foldershare needs is versoning and the ability to “check out” files and it would be a must have for anyone.
1. put up a public SVN server with a web interface
2. ???
3. profit!