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Microsoft is ending support for Skype on TVs
Microsoft announced the integration of Skype in Office Online late last year. So you could collaborate and co-edit documents using the video call and chat service. Starting today you can do the same in OneDrive. The conversations will stay linked to the document-in-progress so you can have all the context and history slapped on for future reference. While Skype is being integrated firmly into online tools to boost interaction, Microsoft has decided to discontinue the Skype for TV app.
Dropbox adds real-time collaboration for Office Online docs
Following the release of a Windows 10 app for tablets, Dropbox is expanding its Microsoft Office integration. The cloud-based repository allows multiple users to edit a file with Office Online with all of the updates synced in real time. This means you won't have to alert someone when you're making changes to avoid overwriting tweaks from a colleague.
Skype video and voice chats come to Office and Outlook on the web
You can already have Skype text chats while you're collaborating on Office Online docs or checking mail at Outlook.com. But wouldn't you rather talk to your colleagues and keep your hands free for, you know, work? You're about to get just that: Microsoft says it will bring Skype's video and voice chats to everyone using Office Online and Outlook.com, starting in November. On top of this, it's trotting out a Chrome extension that lets you quickly work with Office and Sway content in the browser, whether it's stored on your PC or in the cloud. All told, you don't have to worry quite so much about leaving Office's native apps behind.
Dropbox and Microsoft just made it easier to edit files in the cloud
Look, it's no secret that Microsoft and Dropbox have been getting cozy with each other. Why, just last November the two companies cooked up a way to launch the correct Office apps to edit documents lounging in your Dropbox locker. Now, thanks to a new update from that unlikely duo, you don't even need to have Office installed to edit your Word, Powerpoint and Excel files -- hitting that Open button while you're previewing a document within a web browser gives you the ability to tweak everything from inside Microsoft's Office Online. Naturally, the integration runs both ways too, so Office Online users can pull up files straight from their Dropbox accounts without so much as firing up a new tab.
You can now chat on Skype inside Office Online apps
Want to get advice while you're plugging away at that big report in Office Online? You won't have to fire up a separate app (or website) any longer. As hinted at by recent leaks, Skype chat is now built into the web productivity suite's versions of PowerPoint and Word. If you want to share ideas with a colleague, you can keep the conversation running alongside your docs without having to juggle windows or browser tabs. Yes, Google Drive has had a similar option for a while, but this collaboration upgrade is definitely handy if you frequently work in Microsoft's world.
Microsoft is adding Google Drive-style chat to Office Online apps
If you enjoy the handy chat feature inside shared docs on Google Drive, it appears Microsoft is adding the feature to its web-based productivity suite as well. According WinSuperSite, Office Online is getting those sidebar convos in the coming weeks, as a new feature called document chat will offer the collaborative boost. For now, it looks like Word and PowerPoint will be the only apps to get the new tool, complete with notifications that'll alert you to respond as needed. This means you can inquire about the real-time changes you see, rather than guess why your colleagued swapped around your sentence structure or wait for them to reply to a comment.
Office comes to the Chrome Web Store along with a slew of upgrades
Microsoft isn't done with Office updates just because it released Office for iPad and made Office Mobile completely free -- it has a bunch of improvements in store for Office Online, too. To start with, Office has reached the Chrome Web Store. You can now launch most of the productivity suite's web apps (Excel is due soon) in the Chrome browser or Chrome OS just by clicking a shortcut. Clearly, the crew from Redmond is no longer averse to supporting your Chromebook.
Microsoft rebrands Office Web Apps as Office Online because it's an online version of Office
Use Office Web Apps much? Us neither, which is probably why Microsoft's answer to Google Docs felt it needed a makeover. Following SkyDrive's recent rebrand to OneDrive, Office Web Apps has received similar treatment, and now asks you to call it Office Online. Microsoft hopes this new title more accurately reflects what Web Apps was/is: an online version of Word, Powerpoint, Excel and others, free to SkyDrive OneDrive users. Furthermore, Office Online is now located at the convenient URL of Office.com, which should prompt a few more people to stumble across it and add it to their bookmarks. Otherwise, it's the same Office-in-a-browser experience with real-time co-editing features, just with a heap of new document templates and a dropdown toolbar for selecting different apps on the fly. Now, go get your spreadsheet on -- we need those TPS reports by lunch.
