More new Microsoft productivity apps: OneClip, Revolve

It's been a bumper week for discoveries about as-yet-unannounced productivity apps in the Microsoft pipeline.

Thanks, again, to @h0x0d (Walking Cat) on Twitter, we now know Microsoft is testing internally OneClip, a cross-device cloud clipboard for Windows, Windows Phone, Android and iOS. According to the text describing the OneClip app, OneClip is meant to allow users to "copy once, paste anywhere."

OneClip is currently in internal beta. There are a dozen reviews of the Windows Phone 8/8.1 version of OneClip in the Windows Phone Store. From the description of the app:

"With OneClip, it's easy to get back to the stuff you've seen and used. It might be a photo you took, a screenshot you made, a phone number or address you copied on your PC (and really need now while you're on the run) or just an important piece of text. OneClip makes this available to you automatically, on your behalf, on all your devices. A cross device, secure, intelligent clipboard in the cloud. Why didn't anyone think of this earlier?"

Actually, someone did think of this earlier. .Back in 2006, then-Microsoft-Chief-Technology-Officer Ray Ozzie demonstrated a Web clipboard prototype.

I've asked Microsoft officials when the company plans to make OneClip publicly available across various platforms. No word back so far.

Update (May 26): It turns out that OneClip also is an experimental app from the Microsoft Garage incubator. "The Microsoft Garage is always creating, developing and testing all kinds of amazing ideas," said a spokesperson. "We don't have specific details to share right now."

There's another new Microsoft beta app in the Windows Phone Store, too: a WP version of the Revolve application developed first for iOS by members of the Microsoft Garage incubator. (Another hat tip to @h0x0d for unearthing the Windows Phone version, which also is in internal beta testing.)

Revolve is designed to integrate aspects of a calendar and contact manager, and presents users with information about people they're going to meet with that the app collects from multiple sources.

Because Revolve is a Garage-developed incubation app, it may or may not ever become an "official" Microsoft-branded application. As of last fall, the mission of Microsoft's Garage was to bring out side-project apps, plus consumer-focused apps from various parts of the company, on an experimental, cross-platform basis.

Earlier this week, word leaked about other new Microsoft productivity applications that are in development, including a new lightweight email/chat app meant to be a complement to Outlook that's called Flow; a lightweight document-collaboration app which may be called Flip; and a lightweight project-management/task management app known as Highlander.

Flow, Flip and Highlander are all examples of the kinds of new mobile-first, cross-platform productivity applications that Microsoft is building.

Speaking of project management, Microsoft made available to testers on May 21 test versions of the coming new versions of Project 2016 and Visio 2016 -- two more pieces of its Office 2016 suite of Windows desktop applications due out later this year.