I finally got into Office Live Workspaces today, after having Microsoft lose my password, refuse to reset the password in Firefox, and then repeatedly advertise a sweepstakes I’m not eligible for as I live outside the USA. Simply put, this does not impress me.
However, I got the chance to give Office Live Workspaces a try. And, to put it perfectly frankly, I am very disappointed.
Firstly, you cannot create documents ‘on-site’ - they must be imported from your computer. This appears to be a ploy to tie you into using Office for this, as I couldn’t import a .doc file created in TextEdit. In fact, I couldn’t import anything.
Bar this, it is also mind-bogglingly slow and cumbersome. There are still many bugs and rendering issues, and it ran like a snail for me. The latency was ridiculous.
Some Outlook-like features, such as tasks, calendar appointments and lists are available. They are rubbish. They’re slow, require you to use the mouse a lot of the time, often randomly scroll down beyond the edge of the page, and also are mind-numbingly basic and slow.
I am very disappointed with Office Live Workspaces, and don’t think Google Docs or ThinkFree have anything to worry about. It’s very slow, very uninspiring, and somewhat sad that I can’t write a glowing review of it. It really is one of the worst pieces of web software Microsoft has produced. Probably one of the worst pieces of office software too, going up there with ad-supported Works and Office 2008 for the Mac.
Put simply, it sucks. Don’t bother.
