
Microsoft Brings Real-Time Collaboration To Free Office Web Apps - hackhackhack
http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/06/microsoft-updates-office-365-brings-real-time-collaboration-to-free-office-web-apps-adds-yammer-to-all-enterprise-versions/
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shanselman
Looks like SignalR...

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davidfowl
It is!

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adolfojp
You're the creator of SignalR? Good job man. I mean it.

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simgidacav
I think I don't get the point. Real-time collaboration is something we have
already (google docs, hackpad, ...). And besides, if it's true that it works
only for IE, what's the point?

EDIT: A guy in this thread told it works only for IE, then this statement was
fixed in "also works on Chrome". Since I'm a GNU/Linux user I could not verify
myself.

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simonh
>EDIT: A guy in this thread told it works only for IE, then this statement was
fixed in "also works on Chrome". Since I'm a GNU/Linux user I could not verify
myself.

I'm pretty sure there's a version of Chrome for Linux.

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acchow
They don't release a binary, but you can build Chromium yourself.

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josteink
What do you mean, they dont release binary?

[https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/?platform=linu...](https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/?platform=linux)

It even comes with apt repos for simple Debian-style updates.

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iamshs
It is free? MS released their main product for free? Unbelievable. Their must
be some catch here or I am missing something, either functional restrictions
or buying a skydrive account. Well, looking forward to trying this out.
Potential to be big in academic environments, especially with formatting
fidelity.

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sz4kerto
> functional restrictions

The online Office suite has much less functionality compared to desktop
versions.

The most loyal Office users are not the people who write 2 page long
documents. For example think of a bank who has completely customized Excel so
it displays real-time market data. Now that's where you _need_ the full suite.

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iamshs
Will try it out to see what is missing and if it is suitable for my use case.

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valvoja
7 years after Google Docs. What am I missing?

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fekberg
So just because other tools have this feature it is bad that Office gets it
too? I use Microsoft Office and this is certainly a welcomed feature.

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valvoja
This feature has been essential for so many years that I've stopped using
Office entirely. Most of my docs are shared and edited among a few
collaborators.

I'll reconsider office 1.) when it is free 2.) when it works seamlessly on a
Mac.

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Encosia
> I'll reconsider office 1.) when it is free 2.) when it works seamlessly on a
> Mac.

So, for the past year or two? [https://office.microsoft.com/en-
us/myoffice.aspx](https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/myoffice.aspx)

The free online Office apps work great in Chrome on both Windows and Mac (not
sure about Linux).

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valvoja
Office for Mac. For free online apps I've got Google Docs.

Last one I paid for was Office 08 for Mac and it was quite buggy.

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Encosia
What I'm saying is that the online version of Office is both free and will run
in a browser on your Mac. In my opinion at least, the web-based Office 2013
apps make Google Docs look like a toy - especially if you need to interop with
native Office documents.

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Toshio
I cringe at the thought that some people consider this to be startup-relevant
news (or even hacker-relevant news, for that matter).

I flagged this submission, I hope the usual complainers understand why.

If you don't, by all means, please elaborate.

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DanBC
> I flagged this submission, I hope the usual complainers understand why.

Perhaps you could explain why you think this is flag-worthy? I could
understand that you might find it unimportant, or dull. But you've flagged it,
and declared that you flagged it, which suggests you have some strongly
negative feeling toward it appearing here.

I'd be interested to see where you'd put this on a scale with all the other
stories that get subbed to HN.

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Toshio
> "strongly negative feeling toward it appearing here"

This isn't about feelings, I'm just adding a data point to HN ranking
algorithm.

The reason I enjoy being on HN is because of this community's mindset of
"let's disrupt the big, established, old players". Seen from that angle, this
submission is irrelevant because it's not about disrupting a big player, it's
about perpetuating a harmful monopoly.

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codeka
But how can you expect to "disrupt the big, established, old players" if
you're closing your eyes to what they're actually doing?

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DanBC
_It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be
imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know
yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor
yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle._ \-- widely attributed
to Sun Tzu

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu#Ch._3](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu#Ch._3)

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mrmondo
This does not work at all well in browsers other than IE.

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csmuk
Yes it does. This is hokum and misinformation.

