Microsoft Word

This looks interesting: test Office 2007 Beta 2 right from your browser. No CDs, no installation. Just go to the Office 2007 Test Drive page and follow the steps. (Be forewarned that the test drive doesn’t work with Firefox, and I had some trouble getting it to work with Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview.)

I did some testing and was surprised to discover that the test drive actually consisted of remotely controlling a real Office 2007 Beta 2 installation on a Windows XP computer (or virtual machine, maybe). The system clock time suggested that the test drive was hosted somewhere in Europe.

The test drive seemed very, very slow compared to what I’m used to, and it was especially annoying to see all of Office 2007′s fancy eye candy in slow-mo, but I’m guessing that the performance (or should I say lack thereof) is normal for a remotely-controlled computer.

One Office 2007 Beta 2 feature that I found particularly interesting is the ability to post blog posts directly from Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word 2007 includes integration with blogging services such as Blogger, MSN Spaces, and yes, it looks like it’ll be able to integrate with WordPress.

I was about to write a post from within the test drive installation, but I changed my mind when it asked me for my WordPress username and password. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about handing over my password to a third party that is running a test system (with who knows what kind of security) for Microsoft.

But still, I think this Office 2007 test drive is a very cool concept. I really like the idea of being able to tinker with software without actually purchasing, downloading, and/or installing it.

But then again, OpenOffice.org is making the whole Office test drive concept look foolish with its cleverly coinciding campaign called Take the Test Drive – Keep the Car. Clever.