My Office Knows it All!
I am not saying Office 365 is great! I am saying Office 365 is pretty AWESOME! I think the combination of Office 365, Office 2013, Office Web Apps and SkyDrive is the future for everyone, and an immediate need for many small to mid-sized businesses.
Read my blog post here for a long list of immediate benefits you can get from Office 365, and the second part of another post here about SkyDrive and Office Web App integration and awesomeness.
In Office 2013, just like SharePoint, everything can be tied to an identity. This is optional, but if you choose to identify yourself to Office, the following picture shows where you can set your identity:
The identity shown in an Office Client is referred to as Microsoft Account which can be your Windows Live Account (like @live.com or @msn.com) or your corporate account that’s been associated with Windows Live. After you identify yourself to Office, you have the option to save or open your Office documents from your SkyDrive.
Office defaults to SkyDrive when saving a new document, which means Microsoft wants you to save your document there!
For SharePoint Designer, there are two identities : Microsoft Account (1) as well as the identity of the user who has logged in to SharePoint (2). SharePoint Designer just like SharePoint let’s you sign in as a different user , should you click on the icon labeled as 2 in the picture.
Obviously, you may have a reason for not wanting to be tracked by Office, which is totally understandable. However, a new feature in Office 365 called My Office is interesting and may make you change your mind. The following picture shows My Office (Beta) in the new Office 365:
After you login to your My Office site, you are able to see all your recent documents you have opened in your Office client apps across all your devices, thanks to Microsoft Account support in Office 2013. Alternatively, you can create new Office documents in SkyDrive or access the links used by your Office clients apps. That’s pretty cool stuff!
It’s very impressive how Microsoft has been able to quickly turn things around, and become a serious competitor in this CLOUDY world we are living in!
[Off-Topic]: I always use Word to publish my blog posts. You can also use Word to publish to your corporate SharePoint blogs. Read this HOW-TO.
