Microsoft has just opened up the beta testing for Office Live Workspace (which many consider to be their answer for Google Docs). Office Live Workspace is a password protected, SharePoint workspace hosted by Microsoft.

Your workspace will allow you to store and access documents for work, home and school. You will be limited to 1000 documents for the time being. Unsure if Microsoft will charge for more then 1000 documents or not. Some of the features:

• No more flash drives or sending yourself documents via e-mail
• Invite people to your workspace
• You control who can view, comment, and edit your documents
• Stop manually merging versions from multiple people
• Open and save files directly from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
• Synchronize contact, task, and event lists with Outlook
• No need to learn a new program

With the right marketing and proper solution execution, this could take a bit of the market share from Google.

Here’s another good write up by Arstechnica - Office Live Workspace revealed: a free 250MB “SharePoint Lite” for everyone and TechCrunch -
The Barbarians Are At The Gate, But Microsoft Moves To Protect Office Revenues