Office 2010 Web Apps - initial impressions

I sat down at my computer and thought I would do a quick review of the new online component to Microsoft's Office suite. I had heard through the tech news that it was released last week and I wanted to give you a look at it. Oops.

The first sign that something was wrong was when I searched for it and I saw the result: "Office Web Apps - download to use" Um, why would I need to download anything for a web application?

So the second thing that I found out, is that I can use some of the online component with Office 2007 (without having to download the 2010 beta), but when I clicked through, it told me I needed to be using Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari - no Google Chrome support. I used my IE emulator extension in Chrome and got in.

I clicked to start a new presentation - and it opened my desktop copy of PowerPoint. That's not a web app!

I did some more reading around and I've discovered that the Microsoft online solution is really only designed for those who already have Office installed on their machine and it only provides online storage and collaboration options. For me this is basically useless, but that's just for me.

I'll post more as I know more.