Microsoft Office 2010 Adds Features For Browsers, Smartphones

Office 2010, which goes on sale to businesses this week, shows Microsoft for the first time putting serious sweat into making the suite work better on the Web and smartphones. Microsoft still pushes the feature-packed, client-based interface, but there are notable features focused on keeping Office relevant beyond the desktop screen.

For example, the browser-based versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint have "embed" tags to let a person embed a PowerPoint slide or Excel chart in a blog post. The PowerPoint would reside in a company's SharePoint system (for a company blog) or Microsoft's public SkyDrive (for a public blog), so when the content is updated, the embedded content in the blog stays up to date. The client versions don't have that.

On the mobile app, Office's OneNote digital notepad has a "take a photo" button to capture photos alongside notes out in the field. The client and browser versions don't have that. This reflects Microsoft's thinking that Office 2010 needs unique features based on the different screens a person might use. "We have taken an approach of 'What does productivity mean when you're in the browser?" as opposed to on the phone," says Chris Capossela, Microsoft senior VP of information worker products.

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