Office 2011 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

Appendix D. SkyDrive and Office Web Apps

Back in prehistoric days, there were no personal computers. Computers looked like the big monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 and people used terminals—keyboards and screens—to access information and run programs that lived on those monstrous machines. Then the Apple II arrived on the scene, freeing the world from the giant mainframe computer. You could keep your own documents and programs right on your own desktop machine. These days, with the advent of cloud computing, you’re no longer even tied down to your desktop. You can keep your information on a big network of computers (the Internet) and you can work with it anywhere in the world using programs that also live on the Internet. All you need is a screen and a keyboard—like the one on your MacBook, iPhone, or iPad.

The big guns in today’s computer business provide storage and applications over the Internet. For its part, Apple integrates an online iDisk into your Mac—you can see it right there in Finder. Apple also offers iWork.com, a website where you can use an online version of its productivity suite. Google started out with Gmail and then enticed you with Google Calendar and Google Documents. Microsoft joins the party with SkyDrive, 25 GB of free online storage, and Office Web Apps—lite versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

Why Compute in the Cloud?

Computing over the Internet gives you the freedom to work anywhere. For example, you may start a budget in Excel from your office ...