Onscreen, Mr. Gates.

I have many personality quirks. I am, in real life, a near-obsessive pack-rat. I have several plastic bins full of random cords and plugs from electronic devices which I cannot even remember, much less locate. This is often at odds with my personal war on clutter, my hatred of knick-knacks and my passion for acres of open household flat space where I can set things if I so desire. This carries over to my computer as well, as I hoard resources and will not get a new laptop until I have driven it into the ground. Literally.

Hence, the migration from onboard software to online software and Software-as-a-Service has really been a weepingly beautiful dream made real for me. The one thing I deeply miss is Office. I use Google docs as much as I can, but sometimes I really need the added features of Word or, more particularly, PowerPoint. I have eagerly awaited the inevitable arrival of Office Online. Happily, reports Simon Mackie at Web Worker Daily, that day is almost here:

Office Web Apps will be available for free through Windows Live Skydrive (which also offers 25GB of free cloud storage), and will consist of web app equivalents of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Unlike the more stripped-down Google Apps and Zoho, the documents in Office Web Apps look virtually identical to those in the desktop version of Office.

“Virtually identical”? If true; Huzzah! Though there remain reasons to exercise controlled excitement. According to Mackie, the features in the beta are still fairly limited. Some seem EXTREMELY limited, like the fact that you cannot create new charts online in Excel and you cannot edit Word. What? That seems silly.

Beta invitations for the Office Web Apps Technical Preview are currently being rolled out to selected customers today.

Read more and see some screenshots over at the Web Worker Daily: “Microsoft Starts to Roll Out Office Web Apps Beta”.

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