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Designed to provide a unified experience across the PC, phone and browser, Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) has started its technical preview of Office Web Apps, giving a limited number of consumers access to online versions of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint via Windows Live.

Technical Preview is available in English and Japanese, with additional languages to be added later this fall, according to Microsoft’s announcement on Thursday. Overall, applications are called Office Web Apps, which includes Word Web App, Web App Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote Web App Web App

Microsoft Office Services Michael Schultz, marketing director of the Office Web Apps now offers light versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. “With Office Web Apps people can access, share and work on Office documents from virtually any location with Internet access – which is easy to bring ideas to life at home, school or work,” Schultz said in a statement.

Designed to collect feedback from customers before its wide release, technical preview will lead to changes and updates before a beta release of wide availability, then an official release will be launched next year, according to Schultz.

In July, Microsoft announced that its latest Office suite will allow companies to run Web-based version on their own servers, giving businesses greater control over their information, alleviating some of the security concerns that prevent companies move to the cloud. While the current supply is organized by Microsoft, this latest release shows Microsoft’s commitment to offer its popular desktop programs such as hosted applications.

With rivals in word processing, spreadsheet and presentation tools, Google (www.google.com) cloud-based application suite currently does not offer an option for businesses to run from their own facilities. In contrast, applications must be run from Google’s own servers, raising concerns about privacy and security of your information.

Microsoft already dominates the market for desktop productivity suite with half a billion people who use Microsoft Office every day, according to Microsoft. And like their email domain hosting company in the foreign exchange market, a hosted version of Microsoft Office may be what companies are looking for.