Free MSFT Office Apps

How do you compete with rivals that are willing to give away a product comparable to yours?

That's Microsoft's multi-billion dollar Office dilemma as it tries to compete with Google and its free Google Apps platform. For a generation raised on Gmail, Google Drive and the Google Docs family might be good enough for some potential customers to decide they don't need the "real" Office after all.

In a bid to raise the stakes, Google is making its free Quickoffice suite a standard feature of its latest Android distribution, KitKat. Meanwhile, Apple is stumbling, cutting features as it tries to make its iWork programs compatible across iPads and Macs.

All of which explains why Microsoft is evolving its Office Web Apps at breakneck speed.

The latest Office Web App updates will go live shortly for anyone who signs in at Office.com with a free Microsoft account or a paid Office 365 account. (If you're not seeing the new features yet, be patient. A Microsoft spokesperson told me the global rollout begins today, and by end of week everyone should have access to the new Office Web Apps.) These are significant improvements, enhancing collaborative capabilities and making the free online versions credible alternatives to the paid Office 2013 and Office 365 products.