With Office 2013 and 365, Microsoft is Getting Serious In”The Cloud”.

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With Office 365, you’re signed into your Microsoft account, visible at the top right corner of applications. You can see recent documents from your SkyDrive, as seen above in the left column.

Wired’s Gadget Lab has gone hands on with Microsoft’s new office suites.

Beyond making Office now “borderline cool,” writes Alexandra Chang, the big deal is in the cloud:
Facing competition from Google Drive and Apple’s iWork/iCloud integration, Microsoft is stepping up its game, making real strides in an Office suite that everyone uses, but no one really enjoys.  Microsoft officially unveiled Office 2013 and Office 365. With the cloud at center stage and a refreshed design borrowed from the Windows 8 Metro interface, the new Microsoft Office is actually relevant — and enjoyable to use.

Microsoft is finally going beyond the software plus services-model with Office and is going big on the cloud:

In the latest Office suite, Microsoft is introducing a subscription-based cloud service (and thus an entirely new business model). You’ll still be able to purchase the new Office 2013 in the same way you would with previous versions — by paying a one-time fee for the right to use Office forever on a single PC. But now there’s also a revamped Office 365 that you can pay for monthly.

Unlike the current web-based version of Office 365, the new version will allow you to purchase a subscription to the Office 2013 desktop applications as well. And if you buy Office 365, you’ll be able to download the desktop software onto multiple devices. For example, the consumer-facing Office 365 Home Premium lets you download Office on up to five PCs.

“It’s now your Office, not your machine’s Office,” Chris Pratley, General Manager of Microsoft Office Labs, Planning and Design, told Wired. “In the new world, you sign up for Office and your files and data and settings live in the cloud, and get synchronized with any device you own or any device you use, even if you borrow somebody’s device.”

With Office 365, you can sign in with a Microsoft Account at the top-right corner of the application, and it will sync everything from your account. Save your files to SkyDrive, and they will also sync across devices.

by Mike Barton, editor of Wired.com’s Innovation Insights