Microsoft's cloud-based Office Web Appson SkyDrive, a new version of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, is now freely available to anyone with access to a web browser.

Just as with the desktop version of Microsoft Office, users can create, edit and share Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint slideshows completely free of charge. You do not need to have Office pre-installed on your computer to use Office Web Apps.

Free MS Office online

"Over the last few months, we've gotten incredible feedback from the hundreds of thousands of users in our Office Web Apps Technical Preview," notes Jason Moore Principal Lead Program Manager, Windows Live SkyDrive

"We've been busy incorporating much of that feedback, and today, Office Web Appsare now available to everyone in the US, UK, Canada, and Ireland.

"We'll have more to share next week when Office 2010 is released to consumers, including how Office 2010 + SkyDrive + Office Web Apps give you the best productivity experience across the PC, phone, and browser."

Real-time collaboration

Users can now upload their documents and work together on them in real time, which is the real promise of cloud computing apps such as Office Web Apps.

"Sometimes two brains (or ten brains) are better than one. Like when you're updating a party invitation list in Excel, or planning a group trip using OneNote," notes the Microsoft man. "With co-authoring in Excel and OneNote Web Apps, you can work with your friends at the same time and never be locked out of a document when someone else is working on it."

Web Apps users get 25 gigabytes of storage 'in the cloud' on SkyDrive.

You can start using Microsoft's free Office Web Apps now by heading over to office.live.com.

And you can read our hands on review of Microsoft Office Web Apps right here on TechRadar.

Via Windows Live SkyDrive blog