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Microsoft Expands Office Live Workspace Beta Worldwide
3/4/2008
- E-mail notifications about changes to documents, including added comments;
- A new, expanded Activity Panel that now includes information about changes to workspaces, including the date and time of the changes, the users who made the changes, and links to changed documents;
- Permalinks for workspaces;
- Support for multi-file uploads; and
- Various improvements to the sharing workflow, including a streamlined UI.
Expanded Participation in Education
Gilbert also told us that there's been some "good momentum" for Office Live Workspace among education customers in the United States. Several higher education institutions joined the Office Live Workspace University Early Adopter Program back in October 2007--the same time OLW was formally announced as a suite--including Ball State University, DeVry University, Florida Community College at Jacksonville, Indiana University, Kentucky Community and Technical College System, Michigan State University, University of Illinois, the University of Pennsylvania, Rio Salado College of the Maricopa Community Colleges, University of Washington, and Vanderbilt University.
"Both in the classroom and in our IT operations, we have tried various forms of collaboration," Matthew Jett Hall, assistant vice chancellor of information technology services and associate chief information architect of enterprise infrastructure at Vanderbilt University, said in a statement released today. "Office Live Workspace combines all of the amazing ease of use that you expect from Microsoft Office with the convenience and security of Web-based storage. The best of both worlds allows you to collaborate, edit and share in ways that previously never existed. This is a great execution of a wonderful concept."
Microsoft said that another university it's been working with, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, will be rolling out Office Live Workspace today for its entire campus. This represents some 16,000 students and alumni and 700 faculty. The move, according to Microsoft, is "part of a broader Live@edu initiative."
Live@edu, since its launch three years ago, has been used by more than 600 schools in 40 countries.
The free Live@edu service provides, in addition to OLW functionality, 5 GB of e-mail space and 5 GB of password-protected storage. Its services, which include blogging and shared calendars, can be accessed via the Web or through mobile devices.
Beta Sweepstakes Kicks Off
To coincide with the full beta launch of Office Live Workspace, Microsoft has also announced a new sweepstakes open to anyone who signs up for the service between March 4 and May 11. There will be 30,000 daily and weekly prizes, including Xbox 360 Elite systems, Zune players, smart phones, and software, along with a $100,000 grand prize. Users can accumulate up to two bonus entries for uploading documents and sharing a document or workspace. Winners will be announced around May 15, according to the company.
About the author: Dave Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's educational technology online publications and electronic newsletters. He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com.
Have any additional questions? Want to share your story? Want to pass along a news tip? Contact Dave Nagel, executive editor, at dnagel@1105media.com.
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