Microsoft Office Live Workspace Beta is an online extension to Microsoft Office.

Now there’s no need for USB drives or emailing documents anymore as now you can save 1000+ Microsoft Office documents in one place i.e. Microsoft Office Live Workspace Beta, and can access them from almost any computer with internet access. Office installed is not a requirement.

You may invite people to your workplace and can assign them rights regarding view, comment and editing documents. For the sake of sharing a single document or your entire workplace, the only need is a person’s email address. You can share your screen to work together on documents in real time using Microsoft ShareView.

It extends Microsoft Office experience as it works like a charm with well known programs like Word, Excel PowerPoint and Outlook. Using Outlook 2003 and 2007 you can synchronize contacts, tasks and

events. You can also open and save files directly using Office XP, 2003 and 2007. Any workspace list can be exported to Excel.

Limitations Include:
From a computer that does not have Microsoft Office installed, you cannot edit documents available in your online workspace but still can view them. Personally i do not like this restriction as we should be able to edit our files online even if we don’t have Microsoft Office installed or accessing files from Public computer as it is in Office Docs.Another restriction/limitation of this service is that to share documents with your friends, your friends must have Windows Live ID.

As it’s in Beta testing so might have many bugs. In my opinion, Microsoft Office Live Workspace would be unable to win the users unless it removes the above discussed restrictions especially editing only with Microsoft Office Installed one.