Microsoft Betas Office Live Workspace

Microsoft is offering a beta of its Office Live Workspace, which lets users share and edit documents online.

These days it seems to be a case of where Google leads, Microsoft will follow. Certainly that’s the case with theirnew free Office Live Workspace, which has just been introduced, allowing users to share, access and store documentsonline.   Google has already done that, which means the Redmond-based giant is playing catch-up. But it does offer a couple of telling advantages. Although it does require a small download, itoffers one-click storage by using a toolbar button on Office, and users can have control over who sees the documents.   Those without Microsoft Office will be able to view and comment on thedocuments, but only those who own Office software will be able to edit documents.   The service will initially be offered as a beta, and those who sign up, according to the site, will be able tostore more than 1,000 Office documents and access them from any computer with a Web browser, as well as eliminate the need to manually merge documents from several people.   "People aree-mailing documents all the time," Eric Gilmore, Microsoft senior product manager for Microsoft Office, told Information Week. "That’s aninefficient way to do things when you want to work together."