The technical preview of Microsoft's Office Web Applications shows that the applications still have a long way to go before being finished - go here for our First Look article.

Word currently only supports viewing of documents, as shown in this screenshot, but the content looks exactly as it would appear if you opened it in the full version of Word.

PowerPoint also shows presentation slides exactly as you would see them in the full PowerPoint client, and you can click to start a slideshow in a new full-screen browser Window. Page transitions are painfully slow unless you have Microsoft's Silverlight runtime installed on your computer.

The most complete of the Office Web Applications is Excel, shown here with an existing spreadsheet open for editing containing a table and an embedded chart. The application has a polished look that make it more closely resemble a full client application than many web-based applications achieve.

18 Sep 2009