Microsoft Office Web Apps still cloaked in mystery

Microsoft online apps an adjunct for corporations

Microsoft Monday shed little light on its forthcoming Office Web Applications, which were announced nine months ago, leaving more questions about the depth of features, their integration with Office on the desktop, how they would run inside a corporate network, and how they stack up to online alternatives.

Microsoft had no beta test code to offer attendees at its annual Partner Conference, where it unveiled a technical preview of Office 2010. Office Web Applications will be delivered as part of the software in the second half of 2010. Microsoft isn't planning a private beta test of Office Web Applications until August.

In fact, Monday's message was strikingly similar to what the company said in October when it announced Web-based versions of its popular Office suite.

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Microsoft is lining up to battle online competitors such as Google Docs, which are available for free; Google Apps Premier Edition, a $50 per user suite of applications that include Google Docs; and Yahoo's Zoho suite.

Office Web Applications don't look to be as sophisticated or feature rich as those offerings, but then Google and Yahoo do not stack up to the desktop version of Office.

Microsoft says Office Web Applications will be free to some 400 million Windows Live consumers, 90 million corporate Office customers with Software Assurance consumers and 510 million existing Office users via online hosting.

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