Live Documents, the startup founded by Hotmail co-founder Sabeer Bhatia that said it was going to war with Microsoft with its online Office suite wasn’t kidding, with screenshots showing that the service is a nearly perfect clone of Microsoft Office.
Digital Inspiration was the first to find screenshots of the yet to be released Microsoft Office killer, and if it wasn’t for the Live Documents bar at the top of each shot you’d swear you were looking at Office 2007; soo much so that I’m at least a little bit skeptical on the scoop; I’m not saying that they are not real, but it wouldn’t be hard to mock up shots like this.
Presuming the shots are real the question then becomes whether the service is legal. Other sites have previously suggested (not in this case) that layouts can not be copyrighted, but I’m sure once Microsoft sees a complete clone of their Office package they’ll be wanting to test this theory in Court.
See our previous coverage here.
Update: as pointed out by commenter’s a full range of screenshots are now available on the Live Documents site.
why shouldn’t you write up all clones of Facebook???
Did you check their website before writing this post?? All screenshots are now available online. You should at least check it before posting.
A clone it is. However if you’ve ever tried ThinkFree Office you’ll find that it’s practically a clone of Microsoft Office 2003 (mind you Office 2003 didn’t use a completely new usability paradigm as Office 2007 does).
they even clone a name and logo
There’s certainly sth. called trade dress, as part of the trademark process..
ie,. http://en.wikip...iki/Trade_dress
How it’s applicable, always debatable.. (xerox’s vs. mac’s vs. ms windows…)
and oftentimes not applicable or not enforceable across different jurisdictions..
so, again, who copies who, visually?…
in fact, all the top-row colors of blogspot / digg / facebook all look similar…
and cf. http://skydrive.live.com and this http://www.livedrive.com eg, certainly look diff..
/ac.
trehus
WTF? what’s Facebook got to do with this?
Hmm…. this is just PR! Move along…….
trehus is right…
Not sure why “Digital Inspiration was the lucky site with the screenshots…” when they’re publicly available to view on the Live Documents site (in the “screenshot tour”).
What do you think, MS will sue them or not?
Something is not right. If they went to all the trouble of making a Flex app that looked so similar to Office 2K7 in a default view then why is the dashboard screen so stylistically different. Also some of the dialog boxes also feature a very different UI motif.
As a Flex coder I would say that they did a great job if they managed to re-create so many GUI components that are visually the same as a Windows counter part. But re-usable components should be easy to include everywhere so the visual inconsistencies do not make sense.
Nice grammar.
Damn! A percect clone: i write> about Live Documents and some people confused with the MSFT office.
A clone of Facebook already exist: it is Hatebook!
@fastdump
If they’re available at the site so be it, but I’m still obliged to reference the source; if they picked it up first so be it but it’s still the place I read about it prior to this post.
Doesn’t really matter the arguments.. media (TC included) are never meant to be neutral.. and TC owner/s got this vested interest in online storage biz stuff thus, don’t expect it to be neutral… grin.
I can’t believe they would even attempt to clone the user interface in such a blatant manner. Microsoft has design guidelines set out for the Ribbon control, which all application developers must follow if they use the Ribbon in their applications. Microsoft grants rights to use the Ribbon control in any type of application *except* Office-type applications. By using the Ribbon this company would only be creating a great deal more work for itself, both in terms of legal expenses and ultimately in terms of the software development they will need to do to make a new UI (which they will have to do when they lose the court battle, if it gets that far).
There is a big difference between documents and a working web app. This has been the holy grail of bubbly software for a while now.
I cannot wait for the Cease & Desist order or lawsuit from Microsoft claiming that Live Documents is “stealing” their interface!
http://www.tech...olen-interface/
http://en.wikip..._Microsoft_Corp.
Poking a finger so blatantly at the eye of one of the biggest software companies is one of the worst business plans one can think of.
I think this may be less than you think…
http://www.tele...roduct=controls
Intel is partnered with them, they might have prepared for the battle.
Loooks really cool.
We argued before that our personal Office killer features are #1 The Ribbon and #2 SmartArt Graphics. I see the ribbon in the screenshots. What about SmartArt graphics? The question I sent in to InstaColl two weeks ago remained unanswered …
http://www.felg..._lookalike.html
You have to realize that live-documents is a Microsoft-friendly product. By saying that, all I mean is its “ready-for-acquisition-by-M$-only”!!
Even the name has been kept as live-documents, so that it integrates well with MS’s ‘live’ brand! (Sabeer Bhatiya made $400mn fool of Gates, he hopes to repeat the history with live-docs!).
http://www.plug...-sabeer-bhatiya
no way anyone is going to sue. microsoft should be worried about google docs than going after a small player like live documents. not even worth even suing.
$20 says nobody is going to court on this.
Plus they also clone Apple’s Quicktime Logo.
Perhaps they should go for the Hat-trick and add some Google colours too.
Short addition: I have an answer from the Live Documents team:
“[...] Also, regarding the ribbon, let me clarify that we have not used the Ribbon/Fluent UI as such – while the look/feel of the toolbar is close to Office 2007, we have not replicated the dynamic contextual reconfiguration of the toolbar.”
http://www.felg...html#comment-64
I think you can actually license ribbon from MS and they might have done this. They have the connections with MS to do that deal. Not sure if you could license it for the web.
He’s just begging for an acquisition.
Kind of sad, really.
Duncan,
Whom are you sleeping with (apart from arrington)?
The users here want to read about new companies/products and reviewing them. There is a difference between Reviewing them and bitching about it in such a lowly manner.
I realize just because ZOHO is a sponsor doesn’t mean you bitch around.
It is only matter of time, before people get fed up of these kind of stupid antics.
chow!
@jason. The disclaimer bit was not in the “About Us” section when I had checked this page on the 23rd of Nov, 2007 (which is the previous post by techcrunch on live documents). I think after receiving a lot of flak at techcrunch about sabeer biting the hand that feeds, they might have ended up including it. The things that these guys do to get into the good books
. Do they really mean what they say or is it just a face saving measure?
As 20 and 24 stated, this is surely aimed as an acquisition play in the hope that MSFT will need something to counter Google Docs.
In a way, pretty smart. Mimic and save time on UI concepts, get on MSFT’s radar, use a couple of connections to whisper a price around, and see an exit within a few months of launch.
What’s wrong with positioning yourself this way? This is business, folks.
Am just surprised that Duncan didn’t address this in his post.
Great PR for what seems to be Vaporware: I registered on their website 23 November and didn’t receive a confirmation email: when I emailed to ask why I got this reply:
Thank you for registering for the Live Documents technology preview.
We have received a massive number of invitation requests and we will be rolling out account activations in batches.
You will be one of the earliest to be invited to try Live Documents – please expect a mail in this regard shortly.
Has any one received an account yet (by the way that came from an email address with this domain name http://www.instacoll.com)
I can’t yet see any evidence of real software: will it actually happen?
wow… talk about a clone
Don’t know why I would choose this over Google Docs.
If Microsoft would indeed sue the site in question over blatant GUI-stealing, it would be an interesting case to follow considering Apples lawsuit against Microsoft over stealing “the general look and feel” of their GUI which Apple subsequently lost. I’m not too well versed in that particular case, but I assume that there’d be prejudice against Microsoft if they would indeed sue Live Documents.
Now if Adobe would only sue Live Documents over the name, considering Adobe’s use of LiveDocs ;o)
I can’t see anymore acquisitions in this space to be honest. Most of the big players have this feature set. MS is going to build their own for sure and yahoo have theirs now and google theirs too.
I really don’t get this talk of this being an acquisition play apart from the Live Document folks hoping that would happen.
Would YOU reward someone with an acquisition who has cloned your product to the tee and rubs it in your face?
Microsoft has plenty of other products beside Office that could also be copied this way by others.
Also, for expanding the current Office experience to web, Microsoft already has an online beta Office extension at officelive.microsoft.com.
These guys are real copy cats,if he thinks he going to repeat history he is just fooling himself
Does anyone know how to use the indent bar when quoting someone?
Um, they have a downloadable program to “integrate” Live-Documents with MS Office. I’m guessing that screen shot is the integration, not the online application.
As someone pointed out earlier, the live-documents bar at the top is so stylistically different, that my assumption makes sense.
Hell! That’s an exact copy. They’ve only taken out time to rearrange the stuff and rename the software.
this is why they invented the word “karma”…. never did much of anything creative, piggybacked on the hotmail team, made a tone of money because microwhatsits was dumb…. and has never done anything since, except wear cool clothes in delhi hotels…. copying is an indian thing with its own rewards, there really isn’t the same concepts of individuality in that culture, so, what would we expect? originality? nah
If the gurus at TC had the decency to do a little research on what they are writing about they would not embarrass themselves everytime they open their mouth.
Please do us a little courtesy and try to first figure out what “Live Documents” really is. This is what they say:
If you want to continue using your existing Office applications, Live Documents works within the mainstream productivity applications that you use everyday – Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint – and adds a layer of control that seamlessly extends your ability to share and manage documents created in these tools.
This totally explains the image above. Yes! someone call a libel lawyer!
Photoshopped for sure.
“Other sites have previously suggested that layouts can not be copyrighted, but I’m sure once Microsoft sees a complete clone of their Office package they’ll be wanting to test this theory in Court.”
LOL. Classic quote. Very true.
We all know Microsoft isn’t afraid to go to court – and they sure as hell have plenty of money to do it with.
Pretty dangerous position for a startup, where one big lawsuit can wipe you out.
Wow – I just went and checked out the screen shots on the actual Live document site. These ones here at TC are real.
I thought perhaps there was a screwup. This is one of the most blatant rip-off jobs I have ever seen. These guys are seriously asking for it.
http://www.live...com/index.html#
There’s the tour for anyone who is interested.
Reminds me of the new aol.com ripping off Yahoo.com
Isn’t it somewhat suspicious that a week ago, they “launched” with no screenshots, got slammed by all the bloggers and then, lo and behold, suddenly these beautiful screenshots appear a week later?
What kind of marketing plan is that?
@ 39.
I think I have to agree…seems like the most likely reasoning behind the screen shots.
Duncan, I feel sorry for how everyone attacks you.
I like your posts though, that’s all that matters.
@micfo.com
Intel will not back a new startup against one of his partner, alias Microsoft! Particularly in a evident case like this one where Microsoft can easily kick the hell out of Live Documents (no matter what, they patented the Ribbon and it’s design).
Going to war with us, BUT, copying our format and striving to be compatible!