Facebook ties up with MS for Office documents

Facebook, the social networking website, is collaborating with software giant Microsoft to launch Docs.com, which will allow its over 400 million users to create and collaborate Office documents through Facebook. Microsoft owns a 1.6 per cent stake in Facebook.

Speaking at the Facebook F8 developers' conference in San Francisco, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, told reporters the social platform would soon roll out Docs.com. “Built on Microsoft Office 2010, the Docs app will enable Facebook users for the first time to create and share Microsoft Office documents directly with their Facebook friends, using the Office tools they already know.”

Docs.com has been developed by Microsoft FUSE (Future Social Experiences) Labs. The user can create documents from within the web app or upload from a computer. Once uploaded, a document can be edited in real time online — a definite change from Microsoft's previous cloud offerings like the Sharepoint, which requires users to check in and out of documents when they want to edit these. Vizisense data show nearly 14.5 million Indian users visit Facebook every month.