There's a completely new Microsoft Office app: Office 365 Plaer

There's a brand new application in Microsoft Office: Office 365 Plaer. Think of it as cheap windows 8 response to cloud-based coordination tools like Trello, allowing teams to organize tasks with visually arranged boards filled with cards.

Saying the tool helps teams organize their work visually, Microsoft explained their product inside a article, saying "each plan has its own Board, and within each Board, each work item or task is represented by a Card that can have payment dates, attachments, categories, and conversations related to it." All of these functions will sound familiar to Trello users, as will some of the screenshots.

But there's something unique to Plaer, including integration along with other Office products. Attached Office documents could be edited quickly, online or off, for example. Additionally, there are integration with Onenote every plan includes a notebook created for it.

The Hub view lets teams track how many tasks are assigned to individual users and how much progress they've made. It comes filled with charts.

Not everyone can user Plaer: it's currently offered simply to cheap office 2010 professional First Release customers; that is, to customers who've opted in to early releases of Microsoft software. Even so, the app is available to users of the following plans:

Note that this omits some Enterprise plans, all Home ones, and all sorts of Government ones. Even if your plan provides the app, an administrator needs to let the app before users can begin having fun with it. So if you aren't seeing the app offered, this is why.

Presumably the app will be more widely distributed after this trial period, during which cheap office professional 2013 is asking users for feedback. It should be interesting to see how the cool product evolves.