On the Microsoft Office Blogs, the company announced three major developments:

OneNote for MacOneNote is Free EverywhereOneNote Service Provides a Cloud API – this allows developers to connect to it via any application

Other cool features of the OneNote service included in the post is OneNote Clipper for saving full web pages with a click, me@onenote.com that allows you to email notes to OneNote, and Office Lens for capturing documents and Whiteboards with your Windows Phone.

OneNote Everywhere for Free

Office.com replaces Office Web Apps and there you can use all online versions of Office products. And now, OneNote is free to everyone via OneNote.com. It’s been available for users of Windows 8 as a Modern app and Windows Phone, and the Web. Staring Monday of this week it’s free to users of older versions of Windows too, on any device, including a free version for Mac users who can download it from the Mac App Store. The OneNote app is available for the iPhone, and we have an article that will help you get started with it.

This is exciting news for OneNote users, especially those who use Macs at home or the office. This should also put the screws to the free note taking app Evernote – which is available virtually everywhere for free too.  But more importantly, does this mean the company is getting us one step closer to MS Office for iOS? Here is look at a promotional video of how the OneNote works among all devices and platforms:

Onenote was one of the reasons I never pulled the trigger to use a Mac at work in the past. This is huge news (at least for me)…. Now all I need is a version of Outlook that’s on-par with the Windows version. Coming soon I hope! It’s not a problem accessing password protected folders/sections from the Web Client. It works without an issue, just tested it. Just remember, password protected sections are not included in searches unless you first unlock it. And, if it is different, can it be installed alongside OneNote that packaged with Word 2007/2010? According to the blog post from the MS Product team, the FREE versions include all the features of the latest version – Onenote 2013 however, some features are only available in the PAID version or the version included in Office 2013. Specifically: Sharepoint Support Version History Outlook Integration. However all Core OneNote capabilities are available in the free version. http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/17/onenote-now-on-mac-free-everywhere-and-service-powered/ Since I’ve got an older version I assume from the quote above that you can install it side by side. Going to give it a try and see what happens… Comment

Δ