Co-authoring will be big
Microsoft Office 2010 is going to come out soon. You can download the beta here. One of the biggest features new in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel is co-authoring.
Co-authoring will allow people to share, edit, and collaborate on documents in real time. Yes, its like Google Docs but from your desktop. I was first fascinated by the concept when I learned about the operating system for the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) computers. The OLPC laptops allows children to work individually (home), within a selected number of people (groups), or publicly (neighborhood). The entire OS is build from a collaboration stand point allowing children to share anything they do on a computer with people around them. This is very similar to the way we work everyday in the office.
We’ve found ourselves in a situation a few times where we are brainstorming in the same room within the same shared Google Spreadsheet. Similar to how we would post stickies on the white board we posted words in cells. This made the act of documenting and organizing ideas very easy.
So, Microsoft 2010 seeks to take us a step further in that direction. Its not fully where I’d like it to be. To fully utilize the co-authoring system Microsoft says in a footnote:
“Instant messaging and presence requires one of the following: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 with Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2; Windows Live Messenger, or another instant messaging application that supports IMessenger. Voice calls require Office Communications Server 2007 R2 with Office Communicator 2007 R2 or an instant messaging application that supports IMessengerAdvanced.”
I’m still interested to see how this pans out, but the real solution will be on the operating system level.
