In a move that is probably more marketing than anything else, Microsoft is allowing users to share documents on-line. Will this allow collaboration on documents? It will certainly be an improvement on e-mailing documents around and keeping them on hard drives. Will people be able to jointly work on documents as you can with Google Docs or other on-line document collaboration tools? Time will tell, but from the initial things I see this morning the answer at first appears to be no.
Why should Financial Services firms take note of this announcement? Looking to improve collaboration through improved tools will help all firms, not just Financial Services firms. With these tools, Research reports, marketing and sales documents, and (heavens forbid) technology budget documents (a favorite of mine at this time of year) can be co-created and co-authored much easier saving time and money. The fact that our friends in Redmond is finally getting into the act should act as a wake up call the IT groups that have not been paying attention to Web 2.0 tools and techniques.
Posted by steinthal 
