Use to CloudOn to Access MS Office Products on iPad

Taken from The Ledge (www.theledger.com)

By KEVIN WING
LEDGER CORRESPONDENT

If you're one of the about 50 million people who use an iPad and want to use it to review, edit or create documents using the Microsoft Office suite of products, then CloudOn just may be your answer.

CloudOn works by employing the combination of application hosting and web service to deliver Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint to your iPad, meaning you need to be online to use it. Since the application is running on the CloudOn servers, you must also have access to your files. Right now, CloudOn seamlessly integrates with Dropbox (set up a free Dropbox account at www.dropbox.com).

After creating your online account, you're asked if you have a DropBox account through which you can store your online documents. If not, you can create one on the fly. CloudOn then opens to reveal any documents you already have stored on DropBox. Beyond editing existing documents, you can create new ones in all three Office applications. And since the documents are automatically saved and synced with your DropBox storage, you can access them locally to edit on your PC as well as your iPad.

CloudOn offers the closest experience to working in Microsoft Office on your desktop that is available for the iPad. However, there are items to consider when using CloudOn. First, you cannot open password-protected files via CloudOn. Second, there are rumors that CloudOn will not remain a free app. So I would suggest downloading CloudOn while it's free.

[ Kevin Wing is director of managed services and Data Center Network for Lakeland-based DSM Technology Consultants. ]