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Office Live Workspace allows users to upload Word, PowerPoint, Excel or PDF files to a secure site and add notations through the browser. More extensive editing, collaboration and document creation still requires the full Office suite.

Workspace will give users around 250MB of storage, enough for around 1,000 average Office documents in the OOXML format. The service requires a Windows version

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of Office XP, 2003 or 2007 and a minimum of either IE6 or Firefox 2.0.

The beta is currently only available to US residents, though Microsoft says it hopes to make the service available internationally in early 2008.

While some may question then need for a trimmed down suite of online services with products such as Google Apps and

"The way that Office Live Workspace extends Office on the desktop is a good example of what Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie refer to as our 'software plus services' approach."