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This week Microsoft Office 2010 was released as a technical preview for testers. New collaboration features will be the highlight of Office 2010 applications. Unified and real-time communication products are proliferating throughout the market and Microsoft is hoping to keep pace, along with it’s strong grip on the business world.

Unified Communication – While working in Microsoft Office 2010 you will be able to keep track of which colleagues are online, working on a project, and available to chat or join a meeting.

Real-Time Document Collaboration & Co-Authoring Projects – Everyone knows emailing a document around the office for corrections and approvals can easily turn into a multitude of out-of-sync copies. New features in Office 2010 will allow you to see who is working on a specific document. Groups and permissions can be set to allow specific users to edit sections of a document.

Remote Access – Office files such as Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides stored in the cloud will be available remotely from smartphones or any Web-browser enabled device.

The ship date for Office 2010 can be expected around third quarter next year. Along with the full-featured suite, Microsoft will be offering a limited Web-based free version of Office 2010 where users can access documents via the browser, and not just Internet Explorer.

The latest from Google Labs is a simplified data analysis and visualization tool that allows users to collaboratively develop and manage tabular data. Traditional database systems are known for containing complex SQL queries and transaction processes. Google Fusion Tables has developed a system where the “focus is on fusing data management and collaboration: merging multiple data sources, discussion of the data, querying, visualization, and Web publishing.”
 
Collaborating on large data sets has the potential to produce inaccurate results simply through process. Duplicate copies of the data can emerge where inconsistencies occur. Google Fusion Tables provides a workspace in the cloud where you can invite multiple users to collaborate. Changes made to the data are consistent and you can also select which portions of your data to share with collaborators. An attribution feature gives credit where credit is due, so you’ll know who made what changes. Discussion features allow you to carry on conversations along rows, columns, or even specific cells.
 
The most power feature is the ability to combine multiple data sets and really see the big picture; data from independent sources can be fused on a primary key. Visualization features allow you to instantly present your data on charts and maps; Google Fusion Tables will automatically interpret locations from your data. You can also apply filters to enhance and tweak your visualizations.
 
Google Fusion Tables is fresh out of the garage, so for testing purposes you are allowed to import Microsoft Excel (.xls) and Google spreadsheets, or CSV (comma-separated values) files with up to 100 MB per data set, and a max of 250 MB per user account. You can also export data to CSV files.
 
Source: Google Research Blog