Arcade Berg aka. "Learning Game Design with Arcade Berg"

Office Live Workspace

A bit over a month ago, a Mr. Jeff D commented my post about different tools for documentation and recommended that I’d try out Microsoft’s Office Live Workspace.

I thought I would and then let you guys (and you Jeff, if you’re reading) know what I think.

The official website reads:

• Access Anywhere
• Online Storage and Sharing
• Works with Programs You Know

Yet, I’m afraid it’s not for me. Sorry, Jeff.

It’s a useful tool indeed, but since there are other better alternatives, I won’t be using Workspace. I’ll stick to DropBox and Google Docs.

Workspace let’s me save my document on their server, making me have a backup of the file which I can access from any computer, but so does DropBox. DropBox even let’s me save any kind of file, while Workspace only supports a few.

To browse my files I need to use Workspace’s own interface via the browser (as far as I know) but with DropBox, I can view, edit and work with them as with any other file on my computer.

Having the files on a server is the major point of interest with these services and yet again, DropBox wins. When working with a document in Workspace and I choose to save, the document it saved to the server, making me wait for it to finish. But with DropBox I work with a local copy on my harddrive, so saving is just as fast as ever. Then, afterwards when the file is saved to my harddrive it syncs the new file with the server without me noticing it.

Being able to share my documents is another aspect that as far as I gather, Workspace does quite well. Unfortunately Jeff, I’m in not often in need of that function and when I am, I use Google Docs which works even better than Workspace.

Why, you ask? Because anyone with a Google Account can share documents with me on Google Docs, just as anyone with a Live Account can share files on Workspace. The difference is that Google does everything in browser, while Workspace requires Office to be installed!

That’s right. If I don’t have an Office-package installed, I’m out of luck with Workspace. That’s not a requirement with Google. At least I haven’t gotten it to work without it, hence the victory goes to Google.

But not only does Workspace requires me to have Office installed, it also doesn’t support Chrome! I’m using Chrome as my main browser and I’m not about to change because Microsoft doesn’t support it with a service I have better options for.

Sorry Jeff, no deal.