This morning I had an email from Microsoft, announcing the Microsoft Office Live Workspace Beta. I’ve tried Google Docs and while it’s good, I do like a desktop application for word processing. The promised integration with Word, Excel and Power Point seemed promising, so I signed up.

There’s only one major issue.

It doesn’t work unless you have MS Office. Now I have it at home and at work, but the promise of “Access them from almost any computer with a Web browser” only means you can save and email them – not edit.

You can add notes and view them on the web, but not edit.

You can share them and several users can edit (in Word) and save it to your shared space, but only from their computers – not the web.

So, for Microsoft Office Live Workspace Beta – I give it a big thumbs down. I know I just said I like a desktop word processor, but what’s the point in it being web accessible, if it’s truly not?