Microsoft Office 365 Beta

I have started playing with a beta version of Office 365 beta.  This seems to be Microsoft's alternative to Google mail, Google Docs, perhaps Evernote and possibly Google Apps.  Normally it wouldn't be worth much time since I'm happy with Google and really happy with Evernote BUT this is Microsoft - if this provides an easy transition from desktop Office to the cloud, it could be really big.

First impressions
It's clean and seems easy to use.  There is a group home page (like a Facebook wall) that could be really useful for short updates to your team - it does not have comments though which limits its usefulness considerably.  Other tools are Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote.

Cost
The beta is free but the final version will be between $2 and $24 per user per month (that's $24 to $288 per user per year).  When compared to (free) Google Docs this does not seem to be good value for money - on the other hand, so many people are already comfortable with Office, they will probably pay to keep it.  It will depend how much of the advanced functionality will be available from the cloud (Google's spreadsheet is fairly basic).

Benefits
I expect the benefits to be in group working and file sharing.  I am here, you are there and this could allow us to work on the same document without having to email it back and forth.