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Office Web Applications will support mobile browsers

Microsoft has disclosed that Office Web Applications will run on mobile …

Microsoft has been slowly giving more and more information on Office 2010 and its rather ambitious goal of making the suite available via a familiar experience across the PC, phone, and browser. Ars worked with Microsoft spokespersons to try to learn more about what the new release would bring, but we only managed to get three questions answered with some relevant detail. The rest were greeted with responses like "we're not sharing product roadmaps at this time" and "we will announce further developments when appropriate." Nevertheless, here is a little more information that Microsoft was okay with divulging:

Will Office Mobile be ported to Symbian or completely rewritten for the OS?
Microsoft will collaborate to design new productivity experiences for future Nokia smartphones and this alliance will bring Microsoft productivity technologies to Nokia smartphones, which is the current extent of the deal.

Where is Silverlight Mobile and where is it for Symbian? Will Silverlight Mobile play a role at all in Office Mobile?
We are continuing to evaluate the market and listen to customers to build the best possible mobile product with Silverlight. We are currently conducting a private beta with our ISVs and have received great feedback so far. As the Windows Mobile team announced at Tech Ed North America 2009, Windows Mobile 7 will include Silverlight. We have nothing to announce at this time regarding Silverlight Mobile and Office Mobile.

Will Office Web Applications work on mobile browsers, or just PC browsers?
Yes, mobile browsers will be supported for Office Web applications. We are still in early phases of development and will share additional details around specific browsers and functionality at a later date.

The Office Web Applications (browser versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote), a completely separate set of programs from Office Mobile that is coming for Windows Mobile and Symbian, were announced in October 2008 at PDC. In July 2009, Microsoft disclosed that the apps would be available in three flavors: at no cost but with ads through Windows Live, on-premises for all Office volume licensing customers, and via Microsoft Online Services where customers will be able to purchase a subscription as part of a hosted offering.

Microsoft is planning on having Office Web Applications support Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.5 on Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as Safari 4 on Mac. The fact that they will be supported by mobile browsers is good news for users who have a device that isn't Windows Mobile or Symbian based. Redmond has emphasized time and again the apps will work well across different browsers without any plugins installed, but that Silverlight will play an optional role. For example, we already know that Silverlight will be used to improve the experience of at least two Office Web apps.

Unfortunately, not even a beta of Silverlight Mobile has seen the light of day yet. If a mobile version of Silverlight will be used to enhance the experience of Office Web Applications being used in mobile browsers, it's unlikely that testers will be able to use them on mobile browsers when they get first access to the Office Web Applications (slated for arrival sometime this month, assuming no delays) since Windows Mobile 7 is rumored to RTM in April 2010. It follows that Microsoft is still not ready to show off how the Office Web Applications are supposed to work on mobile browsers, or that Silverlight won't be as important in the mobile browser experience as it will be in the PC browser experience. The final versions of the apps are slated for the first half of 2010, when the whole Office 2010 suite is expected to arrive, so Microsoft still has quite a bit of time to let users test the apps in different mobile browsers.

Channel Ars Technica