Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta  is a Web-based extension of Microsoft Office that lets people access their documents online and share their work with others. Office Live Workspace was among the first entries in the new wave of online services in Microsoft’s software plus services vision previewed last fall.

Live Workspace provides users with 500 MB of online storage with each document being as large as 25 MB. Documents that can be uploaded include Microsoft Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Pictures, and PDF files. Once uploaded you can access these files from any computer and also choose to share these with your friends. To share a file with a friend you only require his/her e-mail address and you can invite him/her to the workspace. You can also grant access rights to your friends. So you could have few who can edit the documents and others who can simple read/review the document.

This is an excellent tool if -

• you save information on a flash drive or send yourself documents via e-mail to work on later.
• you need to access work files when away from your office.
• you need to access school documents when away from your desk (at the library, home on break, etc.).
• you share documents via e-mail and then manually merge all the comments later.
• you use e-mail to coordinate and share information with your sports clubs, study group, etc.
• you planning an event and coordinating with multiple people or vendors.

The service is currently available to select customers from US. Microsoft will be opening up the English-version of the service to the world soon.