Office Online

Office Online (previously Office Web Apps) is an online office suite offered by Microsoft, which allows users to create and edit files using lightweight, web browser-based versions of Microsoft Office applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The offering also includes Outlook.com, People, Calendar and OneDrive, all of which are accessible from a unified app switcher. The on-premises version of this service called Office Web Apps Server can be installed in private clouds in conjunction with Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Lync Server.

History

Office Web Apps was first revealed on October 2008 at PDC 2008 in Los Angeles. Chris Capossela, senior vice president of Microsoft business division introduced Office Web Apps as lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that allow people to create, edit and collaborate on Office documents through a web browser. According to Capossela, Office Web Apps was to become available as a part of Office Live Workspace. Office Web Apps was announced to be powered by AJAX as well as Silverlight; however, the latter is optional and its availability will only "enhance the user experience, resulting in sharper images and improved rendering." Microsoft's Business Division President Stephen Elop stated during PDC 2008 that "a technology preview of Office Web Apps would become available later in 2008". However, the Technical Preview of Office Web Apps was not released until 2009.

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is an office suite of applications, servers, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Over the years, Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, OLE data integration and Visual Basic for Applications scripting language. Microsoft also positions Office as a development platform for line-of-business software under the Office Business Applications brand.

On 10 July 2012, Softpedia reported that Office is used by over a billion people worldwide.

The desktop version of Office is available for Windows and OS X. A touch-optimised version of Microsoft Office is available pre-installed on Windows RT tablets. A mobile version of Office, Office Mobile, is available for free on Windows Phone, iOS and Android. A web-based version of Office, Office Online, is also available. Microsoft has stated that it plans to create a version of Office for "other popular platforms" as well.

Office

An office is generally a room or other area where administrative work is done, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it (see officer, office-holder, official); the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the term "office" may refer to business-related tasks. In legal writing, a company or organization has offices in any place that it has an official presence, even if that presence consists of, for example, a storage silo rather than an office. An office is an architectural and design phenomenon; whether it is a small office such as a bench in the corner of a small business of extremely small size (see small office/home office), through entire floors of buildings, up to and including massive buildings dedicated entirely to one company. In modern terms an office usually refers to the location where white-collar workers are employed. As per James Stephenson,"Office is that part of business enterprise which is devoted to the direction and co-ordination of its various activities."

Office 365

Office 365 is the brand name used by Microsoft for a group of software plus services subscriptions that provides productivity software and related services to its subscribers. For consumers, the service allows the use of Microsoft Office apps on Windows and OS X, provides storage space on Microsoft's cloud storage service OneDrive, and grants 60 Skype minutes per month. For business and enterprise users, Office 365 offers plans including e-mail and social networking services through hosted versions of Exchange Server, Skype for Business Server, SharePoint and Office Online, integration with Yammer, as well as access to the Office software.

After a beta test that began in October 2010, Office 365 was launched on June 28, 2011, as a successor to Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (MSBPOS), originally aimed at corporate users. With the release of Microsoft Office 2013, Office 365 was expanded to include new plans aimed at different types of businesses, along with new plans aimed at general consumers wanting to use the Office desktop software on a subscription basis—with an emphasis on the rolling release model.

Online and offline

The terms "online" and "offline" have specific meanings in regard to computer technology and telecommunications in which "online" indicates a state of connectivity, while "offline" indicates a disconnected state. Common vernacular extended from their computing and telecommunication meanings and refers specifically to an Internet connection. Lastly, in the area of human interaction and conversation, discussions taking place during a business meeting are "online", while issues that do not concern all participants of the meeting should be "taken offline" — continued outside of the meeting.

Definitions

In computer technology and telecommunication, online and offline are defined by Federal Standard 1037C. They are states or conditions of a "device or equipment" or of a "functional unit". To be considered online, one of the following may apply to a system: it is under the direct control of another device; it is under the direct control of the system with which it is associated; or it is available for immediate use on demand by the system without human intervention.