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Microsoft, Nokia Team To Add Mobile Office Apps To Phones

Posted by timothy on from the just-where-you-want-them dept.

CWmike writes "On the same day a court banned sales of Microsoft Office for PCs, Microsoft and Nokia said they are working together to put Microsoft Office on Nokia handsets. It's a move that should give Microsoft leverage against Google and others that are attacking its Office business with free or low-priced Web apps. The aim of the deal is to bring an application called Microsoft Office Mobile to Nokia's Symbian devices, they said. They will also do the same for other Microsoft communications, collaboration and device-management software. The applications will be available first on Nokia's E-series phones, but eventually will extend to other Nokia handsets. The Microsoft-Nokia deal brings two competitors together, but could spell the end of Windows Mobile. Gartner analyst Nick Jones said he is becoming 'more concerned' about the future for Windows Mobile and added in a blog today that Windows Mobile 7 could be Microsoft's last update of the product."

39 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. So much for ... by neonprimetime · · Score: 2, Funny

    ... the Death of MS Word

    1. Re:So much for ... by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · · Score: 3, Funny

      I hope they bring Clippy back!

      "I see you're trying to drunk dial your ex. Would you like some help with that?"

      --
      "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
    2. Re:So much for ... by mollog · · Score: 4, Interesting

      For many years, Microsoft has had the nasty habit of breaking their own software and data formats to force customers to upgrade. It seems that corporations are finally pushing back and refusing the upgrade cycle. This was happening on a large scale with XP, mostly because Vista required a hardware upgrade, and because the 'upgrade' cycle happening during a time of budget tightening.

      Really, Microsoft has been cannibalizing their own business for profits. They don't have the ability to innovate and they have been resorting to forcing upgrades on their customers to maintain revenue. It's too bad, they had a lot of money and they were in the best position to leverage their strategic position to branch into new businesses. But, they didn't have the ability to invest the money in new technology and make it pay.

      So many obvious opportunities simply slipped through Microsoft's fingers. They could have owned browsing, searching and the internet in general, they could have taken over business software, they could have owned gaming. Microsoft, like GM, seems to have gotten too big without redefining themselves.

      The end of Microsoft will be good for software development and for consumers. Microsoft has been a tax on computing and a hindrance to innovation. Windows 7 should be the end.

      --
      Best regards.
    3. Re:So much for ... by PRMan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually Windows 7 seems quite innovative. I am really liking it, and I hated Vista.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    4. Re:So much for ... by Zak3056 · · Score: 4, Informative

      For many years, Microsoft has had the nasty habit of breaking their own software and data formats to force customers to upgrade.

      Citation needed.

      The standard office file formats (i.e. doc, xls, etc) were the same from Office 97 to Office 2003. The Office 2007 file formats (docx, xlsx, etc) are readable and writable by Office 2000 or later. Contrast this with a company like Autodesk, where the file formats change every three years (in a thinly disguised attempt to sell upgrades) and I find it hard to agree with the statement you make above.

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
    5. Re:So much for ... by dhavleak · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's a whole truck load of BS you just posted there my friend.

      For many years, Microsoft has had the nasty habit of breaking their own software and data formats to force customers to upgrade.

      If anything, MS bends over backwards to maintain backwards compatibility. Vista was their first OS in which you couldn't run DOS apps (at least w/o third party s/w). Office 2k7 is completely able to consume/publish in Office 2k3 formats. Office 2k3 is completely able to consume/publish in Office 2k7 formats. 64-bit Vista and 64-bit Win7 can still run your 32-bit Windows apps. Office 2k3, Office 2k7, Vista, Win2k3, WS08, XP etc. are all still supported (some are past their 5-year mainstream support lifecycles but are in extended support). What the hell are you talking about???

      This was happening on a large scale with XP, mostly because Vista required a hardware upgrade, and because the 'upgrade' cycle happening during a time of budget tightening.

      Prove it. You're running your mouth off in a public forum so be prepared to back your claims up. Large scale? Because of a hardware upgrade? Time of budget tightening? And MS considered all the factors when designing for Vista? References please!!

      Really, Microsoft has been cannibalizing their own business for profits.

      Nothing insightful there -- when you own 90+% of the market, you are your own biggest competitor. But cannibalizing? Please explain? They were eating their own sales to get more of their own sales? That doesn't even make sense!

      they have been resorting to forcing upgrades

      How did they force people to upgrade? References? Sources? Anything? Did they hold a gun to someone's head? Did they prematurely curtail the mainstream support of some product? Did they decide to forego an extended support lifecycle of some product? What on god's green earth are you talking about??

      The end of Microsoft will be good for software development and for consumers.

      There's absolutely no proof / logic by which you can make that claim definitively. No matter what you say, there will be counter-arguments that can be made. So understand that your view is simply colored by your MS hatred.

      Microsoft has been a tax on computing and a hindrance to innovation.

      This is slashdot, so I guess you'll get modded +5 Insightful for this kind of unsubstantiated drivel..

      Windows 7 should be the end.

      ???

      You should be the one to decide that right?...

      Just because you hate MS for some irrational reasons, doesn't mean they will stop trying their best. If you dislike Windows, you have other options that you can exercise. But pretending that Windows is somehow broken or a dying product is, well, typical slashdot trolling.

    6. Re:So much for ... by jhol13 · · Score: 2, Informative

      The standard office file formats (i.e. doc, xls, etc) were the same from Office 97 to Office 2003.

      No they were not. I still remember how Office 97 could not read all files created by Office 2003.

  2. Microsoft and Nokia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Should turn out to be a nice story of two brothers: Cain and Abel.

  3. usability by blackraven14250 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Can anyone even imagine creating a serious document on any cellphone? That would be hellish.

    1. Re:usability by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If voice recognition worked...

      --
      This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
    2. Re:usability by kevjava · · Score: 2, Funny

      Works fine here:

      Let's set so double the killer delete select all

      See?

    3. Re:usability by DragonWriter · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Can anyone even imagine creating a serious document on any cellphone?

      Yes. I've even occasionally done it; sure, I wouldn't want to do too detailed layout on a smartphone, but most "serious" documents don't need a lot more than a text editor with the ability to put basic structural features (multilevel headings, mostly, and maybe some tables) for most of the work you do with them (i.e., everything you do while its in the "working draft" phase.) Sure, to finalize something, for certain audiences, you may want to get in the weeds with tweaking the styles and layout, but that's not most of the work.

      You don't want to do heavy work on a smartphone, but both for initial creation (which is often at an outline level), and for doing on-the-go text revisions to serious documents that are in the "working draft" stage, its not a horrible platform, and it has the advantage that your phone is more likely to be with you whenever you have an update you want to make than, say, your laptop (and much more likely than your desktop).

      I'd rather work on a document on my home desktop with my 20" monitor, which is great for two-page editing. But I'd rather have the ability to edit a document when all I have with me is my phone than not at all.

    4. Re:usability by speedtux · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The primary use of this is for reading and annotating.

      However, many cell phones now have screens like 800x350 or 800x480 and allow full (folding) Bluetooth keyboards to be used with the phone; that kind of setup isn't all that different from a netbook.

    5. Re:usability by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 2, Informative

      If voice recognition worked...

      Or handwriting recognition.

      Yeah, I know, I know, tablet PCs (or whatever the latest buzzword for them is) have been the Next Big Thing for twenty years now. But sooner or later we will have handheld phones/computers (whatever buzzword they're calling them at that point) which will be able to translate regular handwriting into text as reliably as typing the same text on a keyboard. Faster than dictation, and a hell of a lot more private. Doing this on a device the size of most of the common smartphones would be quite comfortable, I think.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    6. Re:usability by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If voice recognition worked...

      Or handwriting recognition.

      By my calculations, we'll get handwriting recognition just about at the point computer keyboards will have killed everybody's ability at handwriting.

    7. Re:usability by morghanphoenix · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I've lost track of how many times I've been on one of those automated call systems that used voice recognition only to have my daughter cry in the background and select the wrong option for me.

    8. Re:usability by manekineko2 · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is a news story about bringing Microsoft Office to business Symbian smartphones made by Nokia. Most of the E-Series referenced in the story have keyboards and look like Blackberries.

      This is not about your average T9 cellphone.

  4. What's the big deal? by fewnorms · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seriously, someone explain to me why this is such a big deal? The announcement was made a few days ago that a joint announcement was forthcoming, and this is all they have? I seriously don't get it. I used to own a Nokia Communicator 9300i back in the day that was fully able to edit word and excel documents. Ok, not the most complicated ones, but the apps got the job done pretty well. This was at least 3 years ago by now.
    Whooptiedoo! We can now edit files on the go! (sound familiar?)
    What am I missing here?

    --
    Veni, Vidi, Velcro!
  5. Uh ho by phonewebcam · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Hi! I'm Crappy, your personal handset buddy. I noticed you pressed a number on your phone keypad. It looks like you're trying to make a call. Would you like me to continue to interfere with this even though you almost certainly know what you want to do?".

  6. The usual Gartner nonsense by clang_jangle · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Gartner analyst Nick Jones said he is becoming "more concerned" about the future for Windows Mobile and added in a blog today that Windows Mobile 7 could be Microsoft's last update of the product."

    What an idiotic statement. MS doesn't give up markets that easily (unfortunately). They'll have a windows mobile OS if they have to start building their own phones to sell it.

    --
    Caveat Utilitor
    1. Re:The usual Gartner nonsense by awitod · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It wouldn't surprise me if he's right about this. I have a lot of friends who work for Microsoft in various divisions and I can say without a doubt that the rank and file of Microsoft considers Windows Mobile to be an embarrassment. They've done a piss-poor job with the platform for years now and everyone knows it.

  7. No big deal by da_matta · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Considering that ActiveSync is already the number one mail solution in Nokia (E-series) devices and they have for a long time included office viewers, I don't really thinks this is anything that major. Nokia recognises that Office & Exchange are a necessity for their business customers and want to support that. Microsoft on the other hand would bring Office to Android if that would further their Office-business. If anything, Nokia is trying to get advantage over iPhone as a corporate phone.

  8. user interface ? by Tom · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Uh? Who in their right mind would even want to use office on a mobile phone? The UI is bad as it is on a full-size PC.

    Seriously, a lot of these "tools" are just crap for middle management that for some reason feels empowered when they can do the secretaries job, just worse.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    1. Re:user interface ? by speedtux · · Score: 2, Informative

      Uh? Who in their right mind would even want to use office on a mobile phone? The UI is bad as it is on a full-size PC.

      "Here is your travel itinerary in Microsoft Word format."

      "Here is the almost-final proposal; could you please have a look and mark (with a "*") any items that we need to discuss?"

      "Let me give you a 1-minute run through our presentation; I have the slides on my phone."

    2. Re:user interface ? by Kenja · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I keep several spreadsheets of network and rack configuration information on my Nokia phone. Helps when I'm off site and need to lookup specs on a server. That way I can also make updates on the spot when I have to change an IP etc.

      --

      "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    3. Re:user interface ? by tholomyes · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Here is your travel itinerary in Microsoft Word format."

      Can you just give it to me as plaintext instead?

      --
      When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk
    4. Re:user interface ? by dubbreak · · Score: 4, Informative

      Can you just give it to me as plaintext instead?

      Nope. I send all important email messages as blank body with a Word attachment! If I can't be bothered to copy and paste do you think I'm going covert something to plaintext just for you? I don't even know how to do that and don't have time to learn. Much too busy. Much much too busy.

      --
      "If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
    5. Re:user interface ? by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This isn't really about new, practicality functionality but more about stopping the bleeding. Windows Mobile is losing ground to Apple, RIM, Android, and Symbian. "Pay no attention to those others platforms! Ours now has Office and a new hat!" The problem is anyone who has used Office on Windows Mobile realize it isn't very practical. Most of it has to do that Office isn't really designed for a mobile platform with the limitations in UI--the limitations not being you can't do it on a mobile device but that you can't do it very well.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    6. Re:user interface ? by Tom · · Score: 2, Informative

      So what you need is a document viewer, not an office app.

      Wow, big deal. Last I checked (i.e. yesterday), the iPhone had that ability built-in, and from what I've heard, about every other smartphone does as well.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    7. Re:user interface ? by Tom · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Been there, done that. I've owned one of the first Palms and I own an iPhone now. I've had notebooks since before they were cool.

      Yes, 10 years ago I sometimes ssh'ed into our servers from a Palm III using IR connection to a mobile phone and dialin from that. It worked, it was geeky - and things that take me seconds on a desktop took me minutes on that setup.

      If you have to do work while you're on travel, take a notebook. People who really have actual work to do use notebooks. People who just want the feeling of importance use their phones to do nonsense work where quality doesn't matter.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  9. They're fightin RIM by Stenchwarrior · · Score: 3, Informative

    According to this Link, the claim is that they want to battle Balckberry's RIM.

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    Loading...
  10. What do you mean? by Seth+Kriticos · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This sounds like they had done something innovative in the past. If you really believe that, than please enlighten me of what that might have been. I'm dying to know.

    Copying from others, repackaging it in a user friendly manner and subversively bringing OEM's to install it on all new machines does not count. I mean something technical in their core business.

  11. Re:That's odd by Mulder3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That doesn't mean anything, Symbian will probably die some time in the future, but not Series60(witch is nokia UI ontop of Symbian) Symbian^4 will move away from that ugly C++ API an will be completely based on QT framework and will break the binary compatibility with previous series60/symbain (http://blog.symbian.org/2009/04/30/reviewing-the-release-plan) This means that Series60 will be based on QT as well, so they can easily move to a Linux platform if they want... (and break the binay compatibility again in the process, but nokia doesn't have any problem with that, they do it regularly)

  12. Seriously?... by rAiNsT0rm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you want/need to type a Word doc or Excel spreadsheet on your damn phone then put down the phone, quit the ridiculous job that is consuming your life, and go enjoy life. A tiny screen and keyboard is no way to go through life, son.

    I guess I am throwing in the towel on my geek cred here, but seriously as many IT jobs as I've had and this has never been a need (or want).

    --
    http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
    1. Re:Seriously?... by PaddyM · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I guess you've never seen the tv out feature that normally comes with nokia phones.

    2. Re:Seriously?... by rAiNsT0rm · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wow, you're actually defending this by trying to say hooking up your cell phone to a TV is a viable solution? So if you are near a TV, and have the requisite cables... you can then output your Office files and still have a tiny keyboard. Brilliant! Or not.

      What could be so pressing that you have no laptop, or access to a computer, yet you have a cell phone, proprietary AV cables, and a TV. This is some alternate reality isn't it?

      --
      http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
  13. -1, Failtard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Chinese input is done using pinyin, which *gasp* uses a tradational keyboard. It's hilariously faster to type Chinese using pinyin input vs. hand writing. I mean sickengly, stupidly, mind boggingly faster to the point that it's not even negotiable: anyone who claims otherwise is lying or doesn't know what they're talking about (e.g. the above poster).

  14. Re:Odd move for Microsoft... by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not Symbian. Maemo. http://www.cellpassion.com/news/2009/07/07/why-is-nokia-looking-beyond-symbian-.aspx

    --
    Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
  15. Don't forget keyboard by Ilgaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, you forgot to tell that any bluetooth keyboard (Apple preferred for fun) can be "plugged" to Nokia smart phones to use as input, adding more to shock.

    Oh (for iPhone users), no hack needed. Nokia advertises the driver/app themselves and gives free.