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Microsoft Office Live Workspace has just announced the worldwide launch of its public beta (in English). Previously available by invitation only, anyone can now sign up for the service which allows Microsoft Office users to access and share their documents online. Microsoft is also rolling out several new features to Live Workspace. Here are some of the highlights:

Activity panel: A new activity panel shows all the activity in a workspace at a glance.

Notifications: People can now receive e-mail notifications about changes made to their workspaces or documents.

Direct links: People can now bookmark their workspace or a workspace item via a unique URL in a browser window.

Multi-file upload: People can now upload several files simultaneously by simply dragging and dropping from their desktop.

Improved sharing: New sharing functionality includes an easier user interface and auto-completion of e-mail addresses.

For those of you who haven’t yet seen Office Live Workspace, the basic premise is that once you’ve installed the Office Add-In, all of your Office programs (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.) have a built-in connection to your Live Workspaces account. So you can save files directly to the Web, and then use your Live Workspace account to access them from anywhere and share them with others. It’s a similar concept to Google Docs, but with the huge advantage of being integrated directly into Microsoft Office’s dominant desktop applications.

Microsoft does have a platform strategy that will allow for integration with third-party services, though I certainly wouldn’t expect them to be in any kind of hurry to allow Google Docs to offer a similar integration into Office. But the platform strategy for Live Workspace will be interesting to watch in light of Microsoft’s announcements around more open business practices.

In addition to launching publicly and offering the service for free, Microsoft is putting some serious marketing money behind the product. The company is offering more than 30,000 prizes, including free Microsoft wares like Xbox 360’s, Zune’s, and software, plus $100,000 in college education funds for a grand prize winner.

Tags  applications desktop documents Excel Google docs Live Workspace Microsoft Office Powerpoint share Word Xbox 360