Glad to see Jon Udell hasn't been completely assimilated yet (i.e., is still being an objective reviewer, despite becoming a Microsoft evangelist)
What about all the small-to-medium businesses who today manage data on the desktop, and who could benefit enormously from the ability to push some of that data management into the cloud while retaining the umbilical cord to the desktop? There’s an interesting do-it-yourself opportunity here which I’m pretty sure those folks are not seeing. And again, who can blame them? Although the screencast shows what’s possible, SharePoint is an ungainly contraption that I had to wrestle into submission in order to produce it.
Nevertheless, I’m fascinated by the possibilities here. Hundreds of millions of people manage data in desktop applications Excel and Access. They’re the base. Vastly fewer people manage data in web applications like QuickBase or Dabble DB. They’re the vanguard. If Office Live can become a bridge between the base and the vanguard, that would be a good thing for everyone.
See the full post for an Office Live screencast. SharePoint (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, at the core of Office Live) may still be a bit ungainly in some areas, but I still think Office Live is a strategic bet for Microsoft.
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