Slashdot Mirror
Should Microsoft Put Office On the iPad?
theodp writes "Microsoft is working on a touch-friendly version of Office for Windows 8, writes GeekWire's Todd Bishop. But what about Microsoft Office on the iPad? 'The decision,' Bishop says, 'will say a lot about Microsoft's priorities in this new era. The company can give Windows 8 a boost if it makes Office exclusive to Windows-based tablets. But that's also a risk. The iPad's momentum not only in the home but in the workplace opens the door for Office alternatives to take hold on the Apple tablet, posing a challenge to Microsoft Office.' Over at Minimal Mac, Patrick Rhone feels Microsoft has bigger problems than the lack of Office apps for iOS and Android. 'Like the curtain finally falling from the Wizard of Oz to find just a small, frail, man pretending to be far more powerful and relevant than he really was,' writes Rhone, 'Microsoft's biggest miss was allowing the world to finally see the truth behind the big lie — they were not needed to get real work done. Or anything done, really. And that will be what ultimately kills them.' Perhaps, but BusinessInsider — which finds it just can't quit Excel — also makes a case for why Microsoft should put Office on every platform. Speaking of the future of Office, did you ever notice how people use MS-Word to convince people to use Google Docs?"
It's still Nigger History Month!
Celebrate the long, interesting history of a slave race that never invented the wheel, the shovel, or anything larger than the tribe. Woohoo! Yeah! Sure I'm proud.
No way. Typing on my iPad is one of the most awkward things I do in a day, but I don't blame the device. There are people in my same department at work that I have seen knock out multipage emails on one as if sitting at a regular computer.
I dunno, I just can't do it so Office would be worthless. My iPad is basically a youtube, game device, photoviewer, and mastubatory aid (porn).
I guess I'm a retard
I guess I can see the attraction of running powerpoint presentations from the iPad, but Office in general, is there a point?
I can't imagine you'd want to be doing a lot of text input on it, would you?
This in mind, it seems to me the whole thing is a non-story. MS is now an also-ran in the phone biz, and has no footprint at all in the tablet market. Office or no office, it doesn't seem to matter.
Constitutes "real work" now, it seems.
No one with an actual job is relying solely on post-pc devices to do their "real work".
Ah, Excel, the most abused piece of software in the world. Is there a problem for which it is the right solution?
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
Microsoft should put Office on "The LINUX"!
People aren't getting real work done on the iPad. Unless that real work consists of playing Angry Birds and watching Youtube.
PCs are still the primary Real Work computing platform. That means Windows, and *that* means Microsoft Office.
So sure, some upstart will write some half-assed word processor (like Pages, oh god, that's an app that redefines "suck") and try to bring Real Computing to the iPad, but at the end of the day, Microsoft will be rolling around naked on a huge pile of cash generated by their Windows and Office productivity suite monopolies.
Office supports all kinds of scripting. Would Apple allow apps with such scripting support on it's app store? Would Apple allow the iDevice Office version access MS online services? Unless they've changed pretty recently, I'm under impression that anything like that is a big no-no with Apple, apps which even hint at having that kind of functionality simply rejected.
If Apple would not make exception with MS, then the iDevice MS Office would be seriously crippled, so much so that MS might be right in deciding it does not want to do that. MS is trying to develop office into a broad online offering, and I could see how Apple would not accept that on their devices.
Of course there's a different controversy of just how much scripting should office application documents support in the first place, but I'll not get into that here...
Witch one will ween?
... Apple would probably sue them for a patent infringement. Better everyone stays well away from them and everything they produce.
Theres at least two companies, one http://desktop.onlive.com/ and another one called CloudON that offer this kind of functionality if its really needed.
Having used the former its pretty decent and rather handy, but really I don't see the need to actually *have* Office on the iPad, the ability to use it briefly if needed is enough.
Witty Comment Here
Fuck the iPad. Let Apple enjoy its walled garden experience. The article warns that some other product may come to predominate on the iPad, but so what?
Come on MSFT, don't give in and suck cock the way the Democrats do in the house and senate. Keep some differentiation from Apple's consumer market of shiny objects. Tell Apple to go screw.
That actually sounds like someone talking about Apple more than Microsoft.
Truth is they just want MS Office on Apple products because tablets will continue to be irrelevant to a large part of the world unless they have those apps. Also, the people trying to use them for business think what's missing is Office, but when they get it, they'll be missing the keyboard too, and probably the mouse.
I remember reading about this a few months ago. The article is here.
Basically it is a very dumbed down version designed just to read office files on the go similiar to the pocket Office versions for WindowsCE of the past. They do not want adoption of IOS, but the pocket versions do encourage Windows and Office on desktop computer and kills smaller companies or Apple from getting a foothold in the market which would then threaten Windows.
MS has to be careful and walk a very fine line here. This would negate the reason to buy a Windows smart phone as the only reason people bothered with WindowsCE organizors over palm was the ability to read work documents. Now this gives a great reason for these executives and directors to buy an Iphone. Great now I can work on them too!
Office file formats are not going anyway. I got modded down here a few times saying I can't leave Office because I can not guarantee that my resume will look the same on someone elses computer running Office if I make it under LibraOffice. For that reason it will stay forever in business and MS Office is not going anyway as suppliers and customers will think you are incompentent if you send a document that looks funny on their computer.
So if I worked at MS I would only release Office for Windows 8 and Windows mobile and not care what Google and Apple do as I would have the ball no matter what.
http://saveie6.com/
Until recently, most of the people I know who keep using MS Windows do so for two reasons: games and office. Yes, some people still worry not to be able to work with Office docs on a Mac, probably because a number of years ago Office was discontinued on that OS, and that ancient feeling still haunts the !geeks. But recently, many iPads and other tablets are sold and the tide has turned ; Microsoft starts to see the tsunami wave coming, finally, and has to adapt. Office on the iPad is a start. A monopoly is crumbling...
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Microsoft need fear no "Office Alternative". If LibreOffice couldn't kill the inferior and more expensive Microsoft Office, after OpenOffice couldn't do it, after StarOffice and Word Perfect and LotusNotes or whatever Lotus' foray into a word processor was called, and KOffice, and on and on all the way back past Enable O/A, WordStar, and Format ][ couldn't stop the M$ Office juggernaut, how is an app for a stinking PAD going to do it? No one in his right mind would try to use a touchscreen to do any real typing. I want to hear of someone writing a 500+ page novel entirely on a stinking PAD, then editing it, etc.
Microsoft has made its fortunes off the Windows and Office paradigm. Windows helps sell copies of Office, and needing to have Office sells copies of Windows. If you didn't need Windows to run Office, Windows would not have been able to beat all comers as it did. Windows has had many word processors written to run under or on top of it, (however you look at it) and they haven't really impacted sales of Windows. But if you could run Office under whatever... many people I've known (and I too) have had Windows installed at one point or another just to run a piece of software that required it, (in cases where WINE just wouldn't cut it, usually) and for many, that piece of software is Office, or a subset of it. Microsoft releasing Office for other platforms would help people to use Office without having to have Windows, which will contribute to lower sales figures for Windows, and the computers that come bundled with it.
This is different from PC's where it's (for now) trivial to change the OS. Provided you know what you're doing, you don't have to depend on someone "jailbreaking" your device for you before you can install whatever you want. So the dynamics of OS entrenchment are different on that platform.
Tablet computers are cool toys, and are often useful, but they'll never replace REAL computers. The lack of I/O capabilities alone will prevent it. Any Apple drones out there who want to argue, tell me... can you plug an external hard drive into your iPad? I can plug several into my PC, can you plug in even one? There is little to no expandability or hardware flexibility to tablet computers, they're special-purpose devices.
Anyway, I don't think they'll do it, and if they do, it will have some arbitrary limitations to keep it from being fully functional. You'll see.
I have the iWork apps on my iPad (and before that I relied on documents to go).
I rarely create new documents on my iPad, but I do a lot of editing, proof reading, and finalisation of documents that I then share, send on, present, etc. I consider myself highly productive on my iPad - even though I still have a notebook at my desk on which I will knock together complex presentations or spreadsheets, before iCloud syncs them onto my iPad where I will continue working on them or present them from using key note or numbers. In a typical day I spend about an hour or two in front of my notebook at my desk; and the rest of the day is spent on my iPad in meetings, workshops, waiting rooms, aeroplanes, etc.
I doubt that having Microsoft Office for the iPad will change the way I work, much. I suspect that there will be less fixing and tiding up of PowerPoint or Word documents that Keynote or Pages mangled during the conversion process. But I will still spend more than half my time on the iPad reading, editing, changing, commenting on spreadsheets, presentations and documents in collaboration with others and am unlikely to change the volume of material authored from scratch on the iPad itself just because I now have Office for the iPad.
No -- because we'd have to wait over two years for iPad 5 until the hardware was fast enough to run Messysoft bloatware.
Who let the twelve years in?
Many companies would be more than happy to get rid of the incompatible, bug-ridden mess called MS Office and Outlook. Why can't the businessinsider folks just learn to use Numbers or some other app? What is so special about their charting needs? Typically, such users are just attached to Excel because they've mastered (or so they think) the shoody MS UI and find themselves unable (or unwilling) to learn anything else...
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Next question.
Oh, you want a reason. No keyboard.
Next question.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
but will it have enough memory to run any Microsoft software ?
da da da dum indeed.
Yes Microsoft should.
Maybe it's too early...
"Speaking of the future of Office, did you ever notice how people use MS-Word to convince people to use Google Docs?"
Could anyone explain what this means, and what the linked-to page is illustrating?
'Microsoft's biggest miss was allowing the world to finally see the truth behind the big lie — they were not needed to get real work done.
Only on slashdot is Microsoft Office dying or not needed any more. Back in the real world; the place many here I'm sure must forget exists or something, Office 2010 is selling better than any other MS Office suite before - http://www.techspot.com/news/44268-microsoft-office-2010-turns-one-is-the-fastest-selling-version-ever.html.
MSFT aren't the evil machine they used to be, kids. Move on.....move on......
throw new NoSignatureException();
That really is the only question that need to be answered. Prove to the shareholders that it will, and they will support it.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Microsoft is not stupid. The future of office is not on the desktop, it is in the cloud. This is why they made Office 365, which works on any modern web browser, including the iPad.
There is not need for a "native app" for an office suite. If anything, just do what 50% of developers already to and wrap the website in a "native app" UI so that it shows up on the appstore.
Okay, I can understand wanting some kind of rudimentary spreadsheet viewing/editing application for tablet/mobile devices, but Excel is a particularly good example of a program that really needs a physical, full-size keyboard. There are numerous key combinations and shortcuts that are absolutely essential for efficient usage of Excel. If you're doing any kind of spreadsheet work, you need a keyboard with a numeric keypad, cursors, and Ctrl/Alt/Shift/F-number keys. Tapping an on-screen keyboard just isn't going to cut it, especially when that keyboard takes up valuable screen space that would otherwise be used to display more cells.
In a way, Excel is like Photoshop in that regard. Keyboard shortcuts are huge. These are applications that have evolved their present UI design to suit a desktop computing environment to the point where it would be incredibly cumbersome to adapt it to a tablet device with no mouse, no physical keyboard, and limited screen size. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but if you did actually manage to accomplish the task, users would almost have to completely relearn how to use the application. Nor am I saying that one should even attempt to design a full-featured version of Excel for tablet devices. My view is that tablets really are best suited for content consumption for most kinds of quantitative or visual data. It has nothing to do with whether we're talking about an iPad or some other tablet. The essence of what Excel does, and how the user creates spreadsheets in it, is something I don't think could translate well to such a device. And in light of this, I think the question of whether some incarnation of Office should be developed for iOS seems to be besides the point.
Hi, I'm Anonymous Coward and I've been posting to slashdot from the very beginning.
However you lot have just become too fucking old. You've lost your idealism, and become shitty old men, which is why I'm moving to Reddit.
At first I was concerned by the lack of editors, but it's not like the editors here are worth a damn, and the new censorship system is just unacceptable. The mod system doesn't even go up to 11.
Well, it's been fun but fuck you all. And your mothers.
Good bye sirs.
The iPad is heading towards a ThunderBolt interface and as that happens it will be the only computer you need to own. Dock it using a big screen, tie in Keyboard and mouse and it will be both pad and desktop. That is the future of Apple's compute platforms. Duh.
I think this signals a fundamental change in mobile computing. Microsoft has clung to a (now outdated) model of forcing the same Windows apps on all "Windows" devices. Apple saw that there needed to be a differentiation between desktop applications and mobile "apps" in order for the mobile apps to be the best for that device. Their Tablet PCs aren't the answer. The day that Microsoft figures this out and makes a way to easily create a mobile app of some kind and separates the desktop and mobile platforms they might have a chance against the iPad.
OK, so there are some uses (such as (a) being able to look something up on the internet from the sofa without wasting a few seconds walking to the always-on desktop, and (b) being able to carry all your holiday snaps around to show to people who didn't know they wanted to see them, and (c) there are some cool games for two-year-olds to play with) but none of them apply to me.
So, I use computers for email (fondleslab no use without an add-on keyboard), web (ditto, unless you stick to read-only sites), software development (no idea, can you get Visual Studio on a tablet? - I haven't looked), accounts (can you get Quicken on a tablet? - and even if you could you need a keyboard again) and so on. I haven't felt a need for a fondleslab and haven't acquired one.
What am I missing?
Hi,
It's me, Anonymous Coward, again and I've decided I can't live without Slashdot. So, effective now, I am BACK! Sorry to anyone who was worried or distraught over the news about me leaving, hopefully we can put this behind us.
no. word demands a keyboard and mouse, enormous storage and when i do large documents, a deskfull of space for yellow stickies, notepads, coffee cups, yadayada.... would you use a leatherman to field dress a moose? you could, but you'd be ill advised. iPad is a mobility toolbox, not a mobile workbench. besides, it's only a few billion for MS, and what's a few billion here and there?
they should install office in a coffin instead
and don't want to give away the advantage of having office exclusively on a possibly successfull win8 tablet.
and burn up your data plan? and make roaming cost $$$$ as with out a international data plan and you don't even need to be outside the usa as you can be in boarder area pick up a non us tower and get hit with fees as high as $20 a MEG!
apple will need offer a better deal then a 30% cut of the price of office.
Does Apple sell FinalCut for the non-iSteve world? I'm sure you can find a viewer of just about any document format, got get it. And good luck writing your spread sheets and word docs on a tablet, Office or not.
I've almost converted everyone in my family to open sources software, and the only thing that prevents them from a full conversion to an open source OS such as Ubuntu is Microsoft Office. They need MS Office only because they are worried that if their work sends them an MS Office file, they want to be 100% certain they can open it, work on it, and send it back in a format that their employee can read it.
If Libre Office get their software as the main office product on mobile devices, and become the number one preferred office suite for business and schools, there will be no need to keep any person in my family on Microsoft products.
You're an idiot.
With Microsoft's stock not performing for the last few years (a decade?) maybe Apple should just buy Microsoft with it's gigantic amount of cash ($100B and soaring!).
Not only would it guarantee, forever, Microsoft products on Apple platforms but it would enable Apple to completely dictate the future of the PC industry. Even Android would probably crumble, what use is your smartphone if your competitor controls ALL the PCs that you'd likely use it with? As well as providing a viable alternative to Google search?
Maybe that's why Apple's been saving its pennies. Can you think of a better use for (in a few years) a couple hundred billion dollars?
(Ok, ok, I know the regulatory agencies in all over the world will likely have some anti-trust issues with this. But it's a useful fantasy to see what Apple's cash hoard could be used for.)
Here's an interesting article that says Microsoft (pronounced 'Ballmer') missed the boat: http://minimalmac.com/post/17758177061/microsofts-biggest-miss Tablets in general are proof that Microsoft Office is not 'required' to do useful work. So even if MS could jam Word into a tablet form-factor (e.g. memory and screen footprints), people are now realizing you don't need all that crap to write letters, reports, etc.
(As someone who once spent several months, full-time, evaluating word processors, this is not a surprise to me. MS Word is a mediocre product, in true Microsoft fashion it captured and locked in the market through sales and distribution, not through technical merit.)
Apple has never even hinted at restricting access to the free and open internet--they have probably the most standards compliant mobile web browser in existence. In fact, whenever they talk about software development--they are clear to say there are two platforms for apps, "uncurated web apps" and "curated native apps".
There's a walled garden for native apps because native apps can do far more damage. Take a look at the malware/trojan/virus-laden PC world--that's what they are trying to prevent. This isn't some grand scheme for Apple to control all access to everything. They aren't making coats out of puppies or anything. I honestly don't understand how nerds can claim to understand technology when they can't grasp this basic concept.
By and large I agree with this, Office on the iPad would be great for editing existing documents - I share documents with dropbox to my ipad, sometimes it's just good to review something you've written on a different screen. Being able to edit on the ipad would be a distinct plus.
However... I just have this nagging suspicion that the future is going to end up looking like a network of devices. Streaming movies to apple TV from the ipad is a pretty satisfying experience, the bluetooth keyboard works just fine, but a case that let you snap a keyboard nto an ipad and make it feel like a laptop would be handy. I know, so why don't I just stick with my laptop? Maybe the answer is in the convenience of the ipad. At home I'll always turn to the ipad to pick up mails - just open the cover and it's there, never mind a 30 second start up. Make OSX more like iOS?
Any road up, Office for iOS: I'd vote yes.
people going to realize this?
Particularly since in my experience, tablets are used as toys, not as systems for work.
We have a lot of professors at work who have an iPad, many who got one as soon as it came out. They'll all happily tell you about how great it is, and they all use it frequently... But they never use it for anything work related. They all still have a desktop and laptop, they all use their laptop when giving presentations, they write their documents on the desktop and/or laptop, do their e-mail on them and so on. Closest I ever saw to using one for work was someone who had their Mac hooked to a projector, and was controlling it with the iPad. I guess that does technically count, though any sort of wireless mouse/remote would have done as well and been smaller.
They are toys. They use them to surf the web in meetings, they play games on it, and so on. They use them to have fun and waste time, not to do work.
Now, nothing wrong with that. I have a ton of tech toys myself, I love tech toys, but call a spade a spade. They aren't using tablets as some amazing productivity enhancing device, they are a shiny new toy.
Well the upshot of that is something like Office isn't so useful. Office is pretty firmly in the "work" camp of programs. You don't fire it up for messing around, you fire it up when you need to get something done. As such it isn't the kind of thing you'd use on a tablet.
Also as you point out, text input sucks on a tablet. More generally, content creation sucks on a tablet. Tablets are great for content consumption. If you want to watch a video, surf the web, play a game, they do all that just fine. If you want to edit a video, create a web page, or write a game, they suck. Office is firmly in the content creation category, of course, and as such not the kind of thing that is no good on a tablet.
I think fans of tablets need to remember that they are not going to replace laptops (just as laptops have not replaced desktops, and desktops not replaced larger computers). They also need to seriously take a critical look at their own use. I see stuff like this too often: People who are obsessed with tablets who seem to want to make them in to things they themselves wouldn't use them for.
I'm sure my accountants at work will love to learn an entirely new system.
Nope, last I heard, they still wanted training in Excel.
No need for Office we have google docs
Nope, Safari is ahead of Internet Explorer (9 and 10) on standards compliance, but thats it. Further, Apple has made no efforts whatsoever on even fixing up their own website for standards compliance. It still requires Quicktime to view all media for example, and I've found not offered alternatives.
cause we're not blind fanboys who can't see past what the holy Steve Jobs said before he ascended to the ext level. 20+ years of using a PC and never had a virus or malware. It's called not being an irresponsible dipwit with our electronics. Don't need Apple to protect me, if anything I need something to protect me from Apple.
I've been using OpenOffice, or it's fork/successor LibreOffice for years. (Lots of interesting stories about the LibreOffice/OpenOffice split. Note: the comparison article mentioned is waaay out of date)
I give the nod currently to LibreOffice v3.5, which was just released, but we'll see what Apache does with OpenOffice ('Incubating' at v3.3).
I suspect this is the case for more than your resume. If not, just save it to PDF from OpenOffice. That makes it hard to put in a big searchable database, but you may find a more direct approach works better for getting jobs anyway ;-)
You are an idiot.
Does it even worth? Last time Borland put Delphi on Linux and became bankrupt! A very interesting costly project which never sold. Few percent market share does not worth the time of even a freelancer.
I have been a *NIX developer for years (linux, xenix, aix, smelly SCO and Netware which had an SDK very near to Unix) and I think only server software development worth on these OSes. We developed banking and network management software and both were very successful. But any desktop we did was a failure.
But, alas, the second part of that equation â" Google Apps continuing to get better â" just isn't happening as fast as we'd like.
Seems to be a common syndrome. I think the root cause is that Google Apps is a weapon pointed at Microsoft's heart. Google and Microsoft probably have a lot of private conversations. Keeping this weapon pointed gives Google one more bargaining chip when dealing with MS.
Same syndrome when a big company talks about "switching to linux", if I remember correctly from years ago. They don't really switch to Linux, but Microsoft probably becomes more accomodating in their negotiations.
I imagine that inside Google, people developing Apps may be frustrated and wonder why management seems to be sabotaging them. This is often the case when management does the seemingly irrational for strategic reasons.
Why wouldn't they? Are there enough naive consumers to buy what they may/may not need? Are there enough nApple mobile device users who will rationalize they need it to read the latest chain mail PP presentation? MS is 'The King' of selling unnecessary licenses to users, why wouldn't they continue doing what makes them large amounts of money?
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
Well, MS gets much less than 70% of the price of the boxed version that they sell in the physical Apple store. Maybe they'll get a special deal with Apple but don't count on it.
Why should Microsoft base its decisions on what other companies do?
Microsoft sells software. Apple sells hardware (with software that exists to drive hardware sales). It's not really in Apple's interest to have lots of cross platform apps made by itself unless they facilitate hardware sales - like iTunes on Windows.
Microsoft, on the other hand, should be writing for every platform it can get its hands on, since their money comes from the software sales.
While I don't see MS porting full office to apple/android, I do see them building a very slick VDI client. Office on a tablet will end up as a vdi session to a private cloud server. It may sound crazy, but its the smart thing to do. It allows Microsoft to leverage all the existing tablets that everyone already has entering the corporate environment. They can support more devices quicker and extend the life of older tablets. The tablets 3 years from now will blow away today's tablets, but if its a VDI client then that wont matter.
Tablets are too personalized and a nightmare for IT security. But what if you could connect to a work desktop and get all your work apps in a way that makes IT feels good about it. Yet, allow the individual to keep personalized apps. I think this is why Windows 8 has such a tablet feel to it. Windows 7 already does a good job under VDI, and I expect Win8 to do so much better.
This would definitely be a corporate IT strategy that is in sync with the MS push of VDI and Private cloud that we see MS timing with the Win8 release. Home users are another story.
Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
The same guy that apparently shoved the stick 2 feet up your ass.
It already is, if you install Wine.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Exec responsible for Office sales: "An ipad port has the potential to send Office sales through the roof, especially if we price it reasonable enough to insure significant penetration."
Exec responsible for Windows sales: "Office is one of the driving factors in Windows sales."
Balmer: "No Office on the ipad. We will use it to drive sales of Windows 8 tablets."
Exec responsible for Office sales: "With all due respect, the company needs a product line to rely on once Windows declines. This could be a big opportunity to be relevant this decade."
Balmer: Throws a chair.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"In a sense, Gatekeeper is an attempt to extend the company's infamous (but secure) App Store vetting process to the entire web, creating a way to identify and block unsafe applications regardless of where they came from."
Hello Mountain Lion, welcome to your walled garden web...
This isn't some grand scheme for Apple to control all access to everything.
Actually, that's precisely what it is. Malware is the most comfortable justification, but benign apps are rejected all the damn time for not fitting with Apple's vision or being construed as a competitor to something they either do now or hope to be doing in the near future. Apple may play the 'malware' card in explaining their policy on not accepting language interpreters, but how in the world can that make sense in a heavily sandboxed emulator?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Bill always said he'd open source windows or split that division off before he gave up the MS Office revenue.
If Microsoft were smart, they'd put Office on every platform. Most people aren't going to switch phones from Android or iOS just to get Office. But every single corporate user in the world will be issued a copy if Microsoft ports it.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
I've tried Office 2010 on Wine. It won't even install.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
WTF for? I mean, who is going to use it? Who would ever pay for it? Why would I want it? Maybe Suse would put it in a default installation, but I haven't used Suse in a long time either.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Don't we already have enough ported, legacy bullshit for Linux and iPad? I know people feel like they're addicted to office, but they're not. They get by just fine without it. Windows tablets will flounder in the market this year and next, and then Microsoft will probably do something idiotic like port office. Then, I'm sure that there will be a couple of people who buy the ported version of office, but as usual, it will be too little, too late from Microsoft. The biggest problem the company has is how fat and complacent they have been through all of this. Windows could have ruled the world of mobile if they had been a little more forward thinking a little earlier in the game. They should have thought about phones and tablets before Apple. There was no reason not to. And while I think rumors of the death of the PC might be premature, I think they missed the boat on mobile, and it will be a lot more difficult for them to catch up.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
You might get it on if you try a little less Wine.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I wished the internet and free standards came popular before MS made a jagaurnut with Office. It is the file formats and having everything work and render properly across suppliers, workers, vendors, etc. If your document looks like crap that says a lot about you and the company.
This is the only reason why I and everyone uses office. If OpenDoc were a standard the world would be a much better place. Does Numbers save files in that format by default? Also MS does make great products in addition to crappy ones. Just like Windows 7 it is a mixed bag. It is great for consumers but shitty active directory that locks corporate desktops if a shared drive has any issues. Office has Excel and Access which both are awesome! Just Word and Outlook which are crap are bundled in. LibraOffice does not have a form driven database for non programmers like Access and its spreadsheet program is no where near Excel in functionality so these are reasons as well.
http://saveie6.com/
Apple is positioning the iPad for school work as a textbook eReader. Parents are required to pay a lot for school supplies, as it is. Now they will be asked to pay for both an iPad (to read text books) and a Laptop (to write papers). Ideally the text books would be available for both the iPad and for the Kindle, which is much less expensive. However, Apple has been known in the past to strike exclusive deals with schools and publishers. As a result, the iPad needs a content creation tool that students can use to write basic reports, reducing the need for a laptop. My thought is that it would be in the best interests of Microsoft that this tool be Microsoft Office.
I am taking online courses towards a Master's degree and have used my iPad to write 300 to 400 word essays for weekly questions. It's not the easiest tool to do this, but it does work when you are on the go. Of the three tools at my disposal for creating reports, I prefer my desktop with dual monitors. I can keep my report open one screen and my research in the other. It's definitely much more efficient. The Laptop is second, because I have an actual keyboard. The iPad is last, but definitely the most mobile.
My biggest pet peeve about the current iPad is how hard it is to get content on and off. It would be so much easier if Apple would just add a USB port so you can use a USB device (USB memory key, USB card reader, USB to the camera, etc.).
Not when I have pretty yellow buttons that fart when I touch them. It's so dirty, right?
This signature has Super Cow Powers
So they can piss off people on every platform?
No -- because we'd have to wait over two years for iPad 5 until the hardware was fast enough to run Messysoft bloatware.
Hey man, you accidentally clicked on the Slashdot tab. Youtube is one tab over.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Let Apple fans have their toys, they wouldn't know what to do with Office now anyway, it doesn't have any birds.
Prediction: Yes.
Why? There isn't a 'single microsoft' executing a single business strategy. Xbox games does what's best for them. O/S does their own thing, Office and Mobile run as their own terrorist cells.
It makes sense for Office so it will happen - even at the expense of mobile or O/S
They should not put Office on the iPad, Apples wants to stand out and act like there the queen bee's, they want to make commercials talking about how Windows can't even touch Apple and they proceed to push there products in our faces. I'm NOT an apple fan, I actually generally hate them, they have a 2nd or 3rd rate user experience and prices that are so high you'd think there products are coated in gold. This time Microsoft should make apple invent there own office program and yet again show everyone that apple users aren't going to be compatible.
Messysoft bloatware.
Ha Ha Ha, Oh Wow!
You pug faced hobo bummer! You weren't even being ironic, were you?
Pages, Numbers, and Keynote work well for me both on the Mac and the iPad. iCloud makes syncing documents automatic. The apps are much easier to use and don't have so many confusing and unnecessary features.
I did not upgrade from the previous version of Office on my Mac. Moved Office 2008 into a folder labelled "Bloatware." Converted older documents to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Happy to be rid of it.
Finally a fitting program for the iPad! A Really Shitty program that will fit the Really Shitty hardware!!
Die (Cr)apple Die!
Die Micro$haft Die!!
Thanks to the following apps(for a start) MS Office is already on all the iPads and Androids under my reign.
iTap RDP - Connects to RDP servers AND via TSGateway.
Citrix Receiver
CloudOn - MS Office on the iPad, requires Dropbox for file storage.
GoToMyPC
LogMeIn
What more do you want?
Microsoft shouldn't even have put Office on PCs!
Our daughter's school has (though a grant to the school), 'leant' an iPad to every student. All of them are using it for word processing, assignment, presentations etc. They have all adapted to typing on the one surface quickly, and getting eBooks where practical to replace their text books. Our daughter (and most of the kids) now have smaller bags to take to school, and all their work is accessible and never left in their locker. Their assignment and work are on iCloud (so I can just proof read anything she wants proof read), and look at the due dates for assignments.
All the kids are using Pages, Keynote and Calc to do all of their work - and the thing that is quite clear is that these are quite cut down applications - but they have exactly what you need. The danger for Microsoft is, that if they don't jump on this, the students will be graduating from school not knowing office applications - and will carry that forward into the workplace.
Maybe MS and Google should team up - to put it onto Android and Windows 8 before it is too late.
In my next incarnation, I hope to come back as a code monkey.
HYLYQ2012279294861 which was still Beats By Dr.Dre Sale screwed up in one hand. May Beats By Dre NHL as well read it while Beats By Dre Solo the water heated. She sat New Balance Coupons down at the kitchen table, flipped New Balance New Arrival the drawing of Rain New Balance U41 onto the floor and planted her Adidas Soccer Cleats feet on top of it. Up Nike Jnr Mercurial Victory yours, too, Rainer Moerling Hartheim! See Nike Mercurial SL if I care, you great nike shoes wholesale dogmatic leather-coated Kraut twit. Got Nike Shox R5 no further use for Nike Shox TL1 me, eh? Well, nor have I Men Running Shoes for you!No doubt you're proceeding Kappa Running Shoes with your usual Le coq sportif Running Shoes impulsive speed.
Put it on Android. There are plenty of keyboards on sale that work with Android tablets, including folding and silicon rollable keyboards.
Put another way, would you invest in Microsoft Office now if it was spun off as a separate company?
Not so sure if its growth prospects are so good considering competitors just get better and better.
There must be another direction for MS to grow besides bloat and FUD. Or is it that they just can't hack the 21st?
then that is a relevant comment?
Buy something other than Apple if it doesn't suit your needs. Don't crap all over other people for having different needs.
The web is accessed through a web browser. Those are the applications like Safari or Firefox or Chrome. The web is governed by standards-based protocols which don't require that you install "a special application". You probably shouldn't install random applications you download from the web given your limited understanding of technology.
Apple is adding yet another layer of warning (which can be overridden) on Mac OS to prevent nontechnical people (like yourself) from doing this accidentally.
Wow, who taught you about "sandboxed emulators"? Good for you. Keep at it.
standards compliant than Safari.
This will be hilarious.
I don't believe it works with WINE. You can use it with Crossover Office, though. http://www.codeweavers.com/
and burn up your data plan? and make roaming cost $$$$ as with out a international data plan and you don't even need to be outside the usa as you can be in boarder area pick up a non us tower and get hit with fees as high as $20 a MEG!
Uh, yeah. There is this technology called "WIFI". Perhaps you have heard of it? We have ubiquitous Wifi here in Canada in most cities. Just go to Starbucks or McDonald's. Chances are that if you are editing a document then you are somewhere that has Wifi.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Wine is basically the same as Crossover, because Codeweavers commit their code back to the main branch (unlike Cedega). In both cases, Office 2007 works, and Office 2010 doesn't.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Who cares if it installs.
The real question is, will it *run* on Wine?
So much as been said over the years about how scared Microsoft is to touch certain parts of their code base... If I remember correctly, Outlook is a prime example. But, for a company whose biggest success is that a 20 year old app will run on their OS or a 10 year old excel document will open correctly... is it really possible to for them to a decent port office to objective C ?
"worth" is not a verb.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Why?
Linux is a server OS, not a Desktop OS, no matter how much you want it to be, Linux success is in servers. The Desktop Linux users is only a small percentage, of Developers and Open Source advocates, or family of them. Not that I am saying Linux is bad, it is their niche isn't in the Consumer Level products without heavy modification such as Android or WebOS is. Being that it is a Server OS there isn't that much of a need of an Office suite. What would be handy for Linux would be a set of libraries for developers that will allow for Office compatible input/output.
Secondly Linux biggest and most vocal fans are the Open Source crowd... They don't care much for Microsoft, or Closed Source Solutions. So it will be difficult for Microsoft to get a foot hold in Linux and make any profit off of it. LibreOffice/OpenOffice is really good enough for most of the Linux User needs and it Open Enough to sleep clear minded.
There is already Office for the Mac... Making office for the iPAD and Office for Android (I am not counting as Linux as most development is Java Based) and Office For Windows Mobile makes more sense. First the end users are use to Closed Source Software and are not going to give an it is Not Open Source Fit, Next they are consumer products that is Microsoft Main target for Office. Third it will open the door for mobile apps to Microsoft. By Embracing the iPad it will allow them to Extend their influence in the Mobile market and in time Extinguish the competition.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Every one i know that actually has an iPad only wants to read documents not create them (basically what comes through e-mail), the other 95% of the time they use their iPad \ iPhone for video games.
Chrome is based on Webkit, the same rendering engine that Safari uses (largely written/supported by Apple).
It's barely usable on a machine with a proper keyboard, let alone a two finger virtual one.
what version of webkit is the android mobile browser based on? I honestly don't know.
regardless, you wanna check and see how many of the changes between 535.21 and 534.53.10 were contributed by Apple? the point is that you are bragging about code largely written by Apple--that kinda shoots a hole in the meta-point that Apple is somehow against a free open and standards-based web. It's just one big lie.
Several things made the iPad succeed where many tablets had failed before, but one of the most important was the recognition that the tablet is about consuming, not producing. By blatantly ignoring handwriting recognition, which had been the downfall of the original tablet makers, Apple drew a clear circle around What the iPad Is. Jobs said (paraphrasing) "Once you include a stylus, you're dead."
Putting robuts Office viewers on the iPad makes sense. Putting Office on the iPad would be nuts.
Fail... not when Apple is promoting a competing OS(es) which they hope either kills Windows entirely or at least prevents MS from getting on competing phones/tablets. Sorry, can't get what you need in the iWorld? Switch back. Every time MS makes it easier for you to stay in Apple land they do damage to their own future.
The web is governed by standards-based protocols which don't require that you install "a special application"
Well, yes and no. Admittedly looking at Gatekeeper it indeed isn't about allowing/disallowing 'gmail' like webapps (yet). The article I read implied webapps, but other more informed articles present a much more concrete picture. However, to your point that webapps can't be blocked by apple because you could install Firefox, you cannot install Firefox onto an iOS device. Only browsers that Apple blesses are allowed to run. Apple's hubris could easily lead to them echoing this entire ecosystem on the desktop. So the point about just any old browser being able to run is not going to fly in the current iOS and very possibly the not-too-distant OSX future. Don't begin to tell me that jailbreaking is a cure for all this, it is a bad practice to encourage people to pay money just to immediately enter an antagonistic relationship with the manufacturer.
The web is not some magical unstoppable force, it can be distilled into concrete technologies that can be restricted. If Apple decides Safari is the only browser allowed in OSX/iOS, they can largely acheive that reality. From there, if Safari disables certain Javascript features or something like HTML5 storage unless the site has paid apple to whitelist their specific TLS certificate, that is well within Apple's power over their own platforme.
I would ask that you refrain from the ad hominem in the future. It's just annoying and detracts from the validity of your argument.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
And every time they leave a void with no Microsoft Office on a platform used by *a lot* of people they run the risk of a serious competitor to Office being able to squeeze in.
It's not just the Windows OS they have to look at - they have a lot to lose by leaving a large hole in Office-format-coverage. Your argument also doesn't seem to mesh with their current strategy. The Mac version of Office is doing rather well, and has seen increased development and the best sales ever - sounds a lot like what a software company would want: cross platform success.
Doggedly holding onto the "everyone on Windows" model is what will kill them, and they know it
this thread started with the accusation that Apple was aggressive about restricting access to the internet from their devices and now we are debating whether they offer the "most" standards-compliant web browsing experience on a mobile device or whether they are a "leader" in this field.
Don't you see how that looks like a bait and switch argument to me? It's basically:
"You are a pedophile"
"No I'm not"
"Well, you aren't the least sexually active person in the world, I mean, you aren't the pope"
"I guess not"
"I win."
There's no way to defend oneself against hypotheticals, which is entirely what your argument is based on. Yes, of course, if Apple breaks out of character and decides for the first time ever to restrict access to an open and standards-compliant web from their IOS web browser, and they then yank other web browsers from the App Store (yes, there are others), and they then extend these policies [for the first time ever] to Mac OSX, and they then form their own military and use it to destroy all non-Apple devices so that they only way you can access the web is through an Apple device, then yes--that would certainly compromise the freedom of the web. My point is that they've never shown any inclination towards doing any of these things. The fact that you interpret Apple's focus on customer experience (especially for nontechnical users) as a threat to your way of life says something about you and your grasp of the point of technology.
Fundamentally the web is built on top of technologies provided by profit-making companies. If Google decided to start acting badly then that would have a far greater and more immediate impact on the freedom of the web. But, like with Apple, there is a check against that because there are multiple companies. If Apple or Google or Cisco or whoever starts messing with the web then people will go to Samsung, Bing, etc.
quick hands on
http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/02/21/022112-tech-apps-office/ /w metro interface.
Oh the horror! Microsoft should just put Office out of its misery!