Today, Microsoft made Office Web Apps available for everybody to check out, use, collaborate or do whatever they want with it. This closely follows Microsoft's May 12 launch of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010.

Users just need to access their live.com account, and will find options that allow them to start creating documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

I took a few minutes to test it, and liked what I saw. The layout and design is similar to Office 2007 and its ribbon navigation. As expected, Office Web Apps is a stripped down version of desktop based MS Office. Even in the few minutes I spent on it, I could see there was no way to color the table background. Here's a screenshot:-

It didn't work as smoothly as I had hoped. I could'nt get the system to send out a notification to a gmail contact and start sharing a document to test its collaboration features.

Maybe Microsoft needs to take a leaf from Google's book, and at least make the service easier to test. Google recently made it possible to test Google Docs without a registration, and all you need to start real time co-editing with others is to share a link with them. Worked without a glitch for me.

Office Web Apps, however is a much looked forward to tool, as it simplifies the transition to the cloud for desktop users who love and are familiar working with MS Office.