Today's technological preview of Office Web Apps may be one of the most significant pre-beta launches in Microsoft's record. It comes only a day after an IDC survey established that in an amazing 20% of workplaces Google Docs is "extensively used." Will Office Web Apps be sufficient fend off the threat?

Reports says that 20% of respondents to a survey alleged that Google Docs was being "widely used" in their workplace, a big jump over the 5% who alleged in December 2007 that Google Docs was being extensively used.

Google Docs is most likely being used a balance to Microsoft Office, slightly than a substitute, because the survey also found that 97% of respondents whispered that Microsoft Office was being used extensively in their workplace.

That's for nowadays, although. If business become at ease with Google Docs, they're not expected to want to reimburse for both Microsoft Office with Google Docs. And given that Microsoft Office is more expensive than Google Docs that could spell problem for Microsoft.

Office Web Apps, like Google Docs, is Web-based, and so users have to not have the client version of Office in capable to make use of it. I'll have a fuller review next week, but in my first look at it, I can say it's a visually comfortable experience than Google Docs, plus looks and feels very much like using Office, but on the Web rather than using a client. That's both good and bad --- good because the understanding is more pleasant than by means of Google Docs, bad because at least in my first testing, it's slower than Google Docs.

So will it be sufficient to fend off Google Docs? It will surely give Microsoft shops ammunition to stay with Office rather than switch to Google. Customers used to Office will be grateful for it as well, and it can surely be helpful on netbooks. But at some point, the battle may come down to price, support, with cloud performance --- as well as it's far too early to inform how that will turn out.