Microsoft Collaboration

I tested Microsoft's collaboration capabilities including skydrive, outlook, excel, powerpoint, etc.  My overall conclusion when compared to Google, is that Microsoft is almost there but not quite ready for prime time.  As with Google, you have to work differently.  Collaboration takes a little extra effort by each individual to enable improved productivity of the group.

Here is what I found:

• The UI is just like what you would expect for a Microsoft application, even the web versions of the apps.  This is nice.  It is familiar to people using MS applications.
• Skydrive gives you access to all your files from a web browser the entire application suite is enabled for touch devices.
• However, real-time collaboration is not ready yet.  I tried editing a document online with another person and my updates were not shown on his screen.  This is frustrating and confusing for the user.
• As with the Google applications, not all the functions available in the native apps are available in the web app which is what you have to use to real-time collaborate.
• Lastly the document formatting is not maintained.  A 2 column format will show up as one page in the skydrive web app.

It's going to get interesting.  Google and Microsoft fighting the the collaboration high ground.