MS Office For Android: Pretty, But Woefully Incomplete

mattydread23 writes "The new Office 365 app for Android, launched a week ago, has a super nice UI, but lacks a bunch of basic features and has some really weird oversights — including a classic Microsoft dialog box that offers a choice that makes no sense. 'Overall, it still feels like Microsoft is still trying to funnel people toward its own Windows Phone if they want a better experience. In fact, in a question on an FAQ about how the Android Office app compares to the Windows Phone Office app, Microsoft says this: “Office Mobile on Windows Phone 8 provides a richer, more integrated experience,” and goes on to specify how. That’s a losing strategy when so many other apps — many of them free — offer a richer experience on Android and iOS.' "

Comments

Typical Microsoft approach

[93 Escort Wagon]

There are people in the organization who understand where things are heading in the future, and have convinced the company leadership that they need to be on iOS and Android or get left behind. But the old school mentality dies hard, and Microsoft has painted itself into a corner by making Office one of the fundamental selling points for its tablets (which is flawed thinking anyway, and shows they still don't grasp the market). So this is what you end up with - a crappy office experience on iOS and Android that only serves to make the company look bad.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[houstonbofh]

My grandfather used to call it "Tripping over nickels to pinch pennies." Using Office to push an unpopular tablet, to someone who already owns a tablet, only promotes the Office alternatives.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[ackthpt]

There are people in the organization who understand where things are heading in the future, and have convinced the company leadership that they need to be on iOS and Android or get left behind. But the old school mentality dies hard, and Microsoft has painted itself into a corner by making Office one of the fundamental selling points for its tablets (which is flawed thinking anyway, and shows they still don't grasp the market). So this is what you end up with - a crappy office experience on iOS and Android that only serves to make the company look bad.

Once again this underscores the incredible luck Microsoft have been riding for decades, after big businesses opted to standardize micro computers on MS-DOS PCs. Microsoft never had to claw their way to the top, they just bundled, bought up and drove other competition to ruin by immoral business practices. They haven't lost their way, they never had it to begin it. Apple and Google have carved out the smart phone and tablet markets and made them what they are - a war for supremacy. Microsoft are still playing silly games, like they have some dominant market position.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[OhANameWhatName]

a crappy office experience on iOS and Android that only serves to make the company look bad

Clearly it also makes the company look outdated and monopoloistic. But I see your point.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[OhANameWhatName]

like they have some dominant market position

They do, but despite mathematics being compulsory for most CS courses .. geeks just don't get it.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[0123456]

They do, but despite mathematics being compulsory for most CS courses .. geeks just don't get it.

Microsoft have a dominant market position in the smart phone and tablet markets?

You must be using some new branch of mathematics that I wasn't previously aware of.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Mitchell314]

Mathemagics, apparently.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[noh8rz10]

My grandfather used to call it "Tripping over nickels to pinch pennies."

my GREAT grandfather used to say, don't trip over the farthings to pick up the tuppence!

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[10101001 10101001]

Clearly, the joke is on them. Why? Because virtual keyboards on touch screens outright suck to a degree even higher than really bad laptop keyboards. But, if MS *had* actually put in the effort to do a really decent port of MS Office for Android and iOS and their Surface RT/Pro, I have little doubt that the ones with a keyboard would win hands down.

Now, I guess they could fear that people would just attach keyboards to their Android/iOS phone/tablet and the reviewers would show it's the cheaper route. But, honestly, if the iPad can sell at a premium for the value-added consistency or whatever, I'm certain a decently powered Surface Pro with a decent screen and a decent keyboard as a guarantee would sell as well. Of course, once that happened, I could actually see a port of Apps to the Surface Pro.

Which further goes to show how the Surface RT is a joke and how MS has forgotten its own history. Oh, and it also shows that pushing a Metro UI was just a bad idea because it should have been used just like the DX library to extend what could be done in Windows instead of trying to supplant Window as some sort of synergistic strategy to own the Arm phone/tablet market. But, when all you have is a [monopoly] hammer...

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Microsoft have a dominant market position in the smart phone and tablet markets?
You must be using some new branch of mathematics that I wasn't previously aware of.

No, Microsoft has proven it statistically, the proof just involves extensive use of i - and a couple of NaN's.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[b4dc0d3r]

Is it possible that a port to a Windows phone environment is easier than rewriting it in java aka dalvik? That maybe it is a barely funded trial balloon?

The typical Microsoft approach at play is getting in late and screwing up the first version. Two options now - double down and fix it, or claim lack of interest and abandon the project.

This is not about making office a selling point yet, offering a crippled version for Android. That will make office a non starter, and any other suite wins. Clearly not how Microsoft wants to play it. Late to the game, but they have made up ground when they decided it was worth spending to win.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[ozmanjusri]

You must be using some new branch of mathematics that I wasn't previously aware of.

Or Excel for Android.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[ozmanjusri]

Because virtual keyboards on touch screens outright suck to a degree even higher than really bad laptop keyboards.

Maybe half a decade ago, but slide-style keyboards like Swype and Google Keyboard are almost as fast as physical keys. And if you're using them to add field work to office documents, which is a core use-case for a lot of handheld devices in businesses, they win hands-down.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Andy Prough]

@93 Escort Wagon -> "So this is what you end up with - a crappy office experience"

You are leaping too far ahead with your analysis. This is a beta product - clearly not an "end" point. MS has typically done a fair job of improving the user experience over time with their software, and I would expect for them to iron out the bugs in the Office on Android experience.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Errol backfiring]

And then he cycled away on his pennyfarthing?

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Andy Prough]

@ackthpt -- "Microsoft never had to claw their way to the top, they just bundled, bought up and drove other competition to ruin by immoral business practices."

MS has long had some of the most effective sales teams of any software company in the world. To claim otherwise, or to say that ALL their success was based on "luck" or "immoral business practices" is a serious stretch of the imagination.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[goombah99]

Google is doing much the same on iPhones. It provides late or diminished google apps like mapping compared to the enhanced and first out features on android. Likewise google's new chromecast feature only works in the chrome browser.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't this due to Apple licensing Google to make their own mapping app with Googles data? And when Apple then decided to use their own data instead Google realsed an Google Maps that was equal to the one in Android?

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[TheP4st]

Google is doing much the same on iPhones. It provides late or diminished google apps like mapping compared to the enhanced and first out features on android.

Not really comparable. iPhone apps go through a very rigorous approval procedure, so it should come as no surprise that Google can launch new/enhanced features faster on their own platform than they can do on iOS, I would also be little surprised if certain features get blocked by Apple if they are perceived as competing with a native application/feature.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[jrumney]

a crappy office experience on iOS and Android that only serves to make the company look bad.

Perhaps you haven't tried the latest version of Office on a PC, but it has become exceptionally crappy there too. The time is ripe for a competitor to finally put an end to almost two decades of Microsoft's complete dominance of the Word Processor and Spreadsheet market.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[F.Ultra]

It might be harder to port it to Java but then Microsoft have thousands of developers and all the money in the world so that should be quite easy for them.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[DrXym]

I have yet to see a virtual keyboard which is remotely as fast as a physical keyboard and I very much doubt you have either.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Nerdfest]

Like with Metro, and the Ribbon interface.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[dfghjk]

"Once again this underscores the incredible luck Microsoft have been riding for decades, after big businesses opted to standardize micro computers on MS-DOS PCs. Microsoft never had to claw their way to the top, they just bundled, bought up and drove other competition to ruin by immoral business practices."

You were clearly not around in the 80's.

"Big businesses" did not standardize on MS-DOS, they standardized on IBM and specifically on PC-DOS. MS-DOS was not the same and PCs that couldn't run PC-DOS were failures. Ask AT&T and TI. IBM was the company, MS was a cling-on. They would have been snuffed out if they didn't earn their way elsewhere.

On the OS front, MS has to compete with several alternatives for the PC dekstop, Topview and GEM to name a couple. It created a fully virtual windows product, Windows/386, that was the first truly useful desktop 386-specific product. It created a worthy adversary (NT) to the 286-OS/2 disaster. It created a viable, portable OS that ran on RISC workstations while still running DOS apps. That countered the threat of a dominant Intel. It had to take on IBM while partnering with them and produce a truly excellent product in Windows NT while doing so. It established Win16 and Win32 as the dominant programming interfaces while IBM was pushing their own lock-in. It accomplished all this while Novell had an absolute stranglehold in networking. It sent Novell packing at the same time, not something that people might have predicted at the time. Netware was THE product, LAN Manager was a toy. How times changed.

Meanwhile, Word quickly became a technically excellent product and their office suite competed well with another huge competitor with dominant marketshare. That market wasn't gifted to MS, they earned it and put down Wordperfect in the process.

Finally, Microsoft's bread and butter comes from software for which the industry has never produced viable competition. That's not MS's fault. As the de facto sole supplier of software platforms, it's MS's job to shepherd the industry and drive standards. By and large they do a grim job of that, but MS did PnP which was revolutionary for PCs. They, more than anyone else, create the technical umbrella under which companies like Apple can pluck off-the-shelf components and pretend to be superior engineers. PCs work because of astronomical efforts by countless engineers. MS plays a big role in that.

Sure, MS was/is ruthless and unethical, but to say MS is a product of nothing more than incredible luck for decades is simply ignorant. MS was methodical and technically excellent. They made consistently the best development tools and developed viable offerings in every area that mattered. They destroyed their competition on the field even as they stabbed them in the back off of it. MS fought their way to the top in multiple simultaneous markets.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[flappinbooger]

There are a lot of companies out there that are looking for ANY way to cut costs. They are skating along, still in business, but any place to save a dollar or two or ten thousand - they will do it now just to get by. They are in a long-term pinch not a sudden drop out.

I predict with 100% made up certainty that in THIS climate, more so than any other, there will be many businesses of all sizes absolutely DITCH microsoft. There will be companies move to open office, or the like, in droves.

IT people know about it, IT people have no love lost of MS office, and with tight budgets and a scrappy, aggressive attitude, decision makers will say "why not. And, look into linux while we're at it. This windows 8 BS is the last straw I still remember vista"

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[SpockLogic]

My grandfather used to call it "Tripping over nickels to pinch pennies."

my GREAT grandfather used to say, don't trip over the farthings to pick up the tuppence!

From my memory of pre-dismal coinage there are 16 farthings in tuppence. Did you perhaps make a transpositional error?

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[vawwyakr]

Interesting, I have heard many people complain how much better the iOS version of Google apps work compared to their Android counterparts. I doubt Google is intentionally gimping either product.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[deroby]

So....
* if Google publishes something 'decent but much better on android' then it's Apple's fault.
* if MS publishes something decent but much better on WP8' then it's MS's fault.

What's with all the MS hate here anyway... if you don't like it don't buy it and just walk on. Do people get some kind of ego-boost out of bad-mouthing every single MS-product or decision ? Sjeezsss...

Re: Typical Microsoft approach

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but google dont lose any money since those products are free, and all they need to be is marginally better than the alternatives on that platform.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[ackthpt]

"Once again this underscores the incredible luck Microsoft have been riding for decades, after big businesses opted to standardize micro computers on MS-DOS PCs. Microsoft never had to claw their way to the top, they just bundled, bought up and drove other competition to ruin by immoral business practices."

You were clearly not around in the 80's.

"Big businesses" did not standardize on MS-DOS, they standardized on IBM and specifically on PC-DOS. MS-DOS was not the same and PCs that couldn't run PC-DOS were failures. Ask AT&T and TI. IBM was the company, MS was a cling-on. They would have been snuffed out if they didn't earn their way elsewhere.

On the OS front, MS has to compete with several alternatives for the PC dekstop, Topview and GEM to name a couple. It created a fully virtual windows product, Windows/386, that was the first truly useful desktop 386-specific product. It created a worthy adversary (NT) to the 286-OS/2 disaster. It created a viable, portable OS that ran on RISC workstations while still running DOS apps. That countered the threat of a dominant Intel. It had to take on IBM while partnering with them and produce a truly excellent product in Windows NT while doing so. It established Win16 and Win32 as the dominant programming interfaces while IBM was pushing their own lock-in. It accomplished all this while Novell had an absolute stranglehold in networking. It sent Novell packing at the same time, not something that people might have predicted at the time. Netware was THE product, LAN Manager was a toy. How times changed.

Meanwhile, Word quickly became a technically excellent product and their office suite competed well with another huge competitor with dominant marketshare. That market wasn't gifted to MS, they earned it and put down Wordperfect in the process.

Finally, Microsoft's bread and butter comes from software for which the industry has never produced viable competition. That's not MS's fault. As the de facto sole supplier of software platforms, it's MS's job to shepherd the industry and drive standards. By and large they do a grim job of that, but MS did PnP which was revolutionary for PCs. They, more than anyone else, create the technical umbrella under which companies like Apple can pluck off-the-shelf components and pretend to be superior engineers. PCs work because of astronomical efforts by countless engineers. MS plays a big role in that.

Sure, MS was/is ruthless and unethical, but to say MS is a product of nothing more than incredible luck for decades is simply ignorant. MS was methodical and technically excellent. They made consistently the best development tools and developed viable offerings in every area that mattered. They destroyed their competition on the field even as they stabbed them in the back off of it. MS fought their way to the top in multiple simultaneous markets.

I was there in the 1980's. The PC was the platform of choice, despite some alternatives. Even the Mac preceded the disaster known as Windows 95, but IBM didn't take desktop PCs very seriously.

The IBM PC XT and PC AT were starters, but clones were everywhere and there was a thriving upgrade market from nearly the beginning from 3rd party vendors. Then the PS/2 line came out and was a monstrosity, particularly if you wanted to upgrade anything, which you pretty much couldn't - you had to buy a higher model PS/2. They were expensive, cranky and slow. Microsoft just kept selling MS-DOS versions, because IBM let them. Had IBM at any time told Microsoft they could no longer sell their competing operating system on the 8088 and x86 systems Microsoft would be but a memory these days.

Microsoft succeeded without having to build any hardware, only sell an operating system, incrementally upgrade it and collect more fees and pick up some office software to re-brand as their own.

Competing against IBM wasn't difficult and for Microsoft there were few other operating systems to contend with on PCs they defined the growth and rolled out the massively flawed Windows 95 to unparalleled success.

Now Apple and Google (Android) are sidelining Microsoft in the same way Microsoft sidelined IBM in the PC market.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Chris Mattern]

From my memory of pre-dismal coinage there are 16 farthings in tuppence

Eight. A farthing is a quarter-penny and tuppence is, well, two pence.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Anonymous Coward]

Multiple users achieving 50-70wps with a few different Android keyboards. While touch-typists can do better with physical keyboards, normal users are faster with the slide type.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1764526

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[ciotog]

I don't think so, the suggestion is there's a single tuppence and lots of farthings. To ignore the greater wealth in smaller denominations to go after the "big prize" is foolish.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[dinfinity]

Maybe half a decade ago, but slide-style keyboards like Swype and Google Keyboard are almost as fast as physical keys

Try typing a password or a marginally complex URL.
You'll simply give up and go back to browsing YouTube.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[noh8rz10]

He was from the depression. From his perspective, you should pick up the farthings AND the tuppence! Also, he was a numismatist.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[dinfinity]

Multiple users achieving 50-70wps with a few different Android keyboards.

Alright, now show me a testing application where every error has to be corrected (which is trivial and fast on a hardware keyboard) and where the text consists of slightly more complex and less ubiquitous strings of characters than 'dog' and 'pony'. If you add word completion to typing on a hardware keyboard, it becomes even faster than it already is for 'normal' text.

Another great test is using ssh or any other command line on your phone using a onscreen keyboard. You'll be crying in a corner after three commands.
Warning: you'll die of frustration if you try to use vi with an onscreen keyboard.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[erroneus]

I wanted to say what you said but I don't think I could have said it as well.

Microsoft just seems impaired where it comes to thinking in ways compatible with today's environment. It made sense for Microsoft to give "alternative platforms" a cripled version -- Microsoft had dominance and they wanted to maintain it, however illegally it may have been. (It was ruled illegal for them to leverage one product to boost another and that they were in violation of the law in their practice.)

But today, Microsoft is at a disadvantage where mobile devices are concerned. To use a product which has no established presense in a market where Microsoft is losing. It's like they are trying way too hard to leverage their existing busines/desktop PC monopoly in a market where people are more interested in doing new things in new ways.

They just aren't getting it!

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we're just VERY disapointed by today's Microsoft.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Anonymous Coward]

Surface RT sadly shown Office (slightly crippled one, as not fully VBA compliant) is no longer the key for selling as hot cakes.
Even more castrated Office on the majority of smart-devices will only utterly stain the image of Office in public perception rather than "funneling" users to W8 Phone: what the customer sees is a cheesy piece of junk labelled MS, not (like probably only Bald-mer may dream of) a big ad to throw away owner's Galaxy or iPhone and buy a new Ballmerphone.
If MS can't get that, it is condemned to fall with VistaBob 3.11 (... thinking about it, probably it is exactly what Ballmer said with "we are betting the company on Windows 8"!) rather than nicely expand its services division selling great software for any platform.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[SpockLogic]

From my memory of pre-dismal coinage there are 16 farthings in tuppence

Eight. A farthing is a quarter-penny and tuppence is, well, two pence.

You are correct Sir. My gray matter must be failing ...

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Richy_T]

I use ssh frequently without much of an issue. Vim too. It's not the best experience but it is tolerable.

The big issue I have is with screen. I can't seem to reliably send a tab (needed for a split console).

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[tlhIngan]

Interesting, I have heard many people complain how much better the iOS version of Google apps work compared to their Android counterparts. I doubt Google is intentionally gimping either product.

Not quite mutually exclusive, but I've heard how horrible Google's iOS apps are compared to other iOS apps. Crashing is the biggest complaint (it's almost as if Apple sees "Google" in the title and just approves it blindly - there have been MANY Google apps that simply crash on launching. So much so that Google has had to remove their app until they fix it).

Of course, it doesn't say much about Android if people find the crappy iOS version "better".

OTOH, one has to understand why Microsoft and Google are doing this - Microsoft needs to sell Office 365 subscriptions, so Office for iOS and Android which hook exclusively with Office365 is a great way to do so. If it ran well on Firefox, Linux is covered as well (Office365 is cloud-based, after all). And Microsoft is heavily pushing Office365 on Mac, even though they have Office for Mac (which is subscription free).

Likewise, Google has iOS apps for the same reason - because it gets eyeballs on Google for ad purposes. Now, when will Google get around to fixing their maps - the damn road's been there for 4+ years now and it has street view, but no actual address information. Despite everyone else having it since early 2010!

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[DrXym]

Now how about 50-70 wps where the person has to go back over their typing to correct errors, fix punctuation, replace words that the retarded auto complete has inserted by default etc. I doubt they get 50-70 wps as they are slowly dragging their finger over a paragraph trying to drop the cursor between two letters to correct a typo.

Virtual keyboards suck. There is no sense as to where the hands are resting, no touch feed back to indicate a key press, no short cut accelerators bulk selecting, drag and dropping etc. And the screen real estate is half to draw a keyboard. Auto complete / predictive text makes them tolerable given their limitations for short notes but that's about it. I would absolutely hate to be writing a thesis or anything lengthy on them.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Silvrmane]

FYI, Office 365 on Mac just gets you a copy of Office 2011.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Agent0013]

So.... * if Google publishes something 'decent but much better on android' then it's Apple's fault. * if MS publishes something decent but much better on WP8' then it's MS's fault.

What's with all the MS hate here anyway... if you don't like it don't buy it and just walk on. Do people get some kind of ego-boost out of bad-mouthing every single MS-product or decision ? Sjeezsss...

Obvious troll here! If Apple prevents Google from releasing something as good as they have on Android, then yes it is Apple's fault. But you probably think that makes the Apple system better anyway. Google is doing nothing to prevent MS from publishing, but they purposely choose to make a sucky product. The only thing MS would make that doesn't suck would be a vacuum.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[TemporalBeing]

So.... * if Google publishes something 'decent but much better on android' then it's Apple's fault. * if MS publishes something decent but much better on WP8' then it's MS's fault.

What's with all the MS hate here anyway... if you don't like it don't buy it and just walk on. Do people get some kind of ego-boost out of bad-mouthing every single MS-product or decision ? Sjeezsss...

And you're completely missing the point. Microsoft is not even trying to put forward an equivalent on the Android AND iOS platforms of what is has on its Windows platforms. They're deliberately making inferior products on other platforms to try to steer customers to their preferred platform - Windows. So yes, it's 100% MS's fault.

This would be like Google making an app that used their services on Android, but used a degraded experience (Apple Maps, Bing, etc) on iOS and Windows.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[TemporalBeing]

You must be using some new branch of mathematics that I wasn't previously aware of.

Or Excel for Android.

Well, Excel does contain a number of broken mathematical functions - like floor() - that don't produce the mathematical definitions under certain conditions (like floor() with negative numbers).

Their position must therefore be so bad it's hitting those cases in their Excel spreadsheets which makes them believe its a lot better than it really is.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[dinfinity]

I use ssh frequently without much of an issue. Vim too. It's not the best experience [...]

That is an understatement, my friend. It is a terrible experience. There is little one could do to make it worse.
I take it you switch to a specialty 'programmers' onscreen keyboard and use your hardware volume buttons and camera button to emulate CTRL and ALT?

My slight hostility (born out of frustration) put aside: if you haven't recently, you should really try using a slide out keyboard phone in conjunction with ssh (if necessary with a little keymap tweaking for special keys). Use it for a little while, then go back to the onscreen keyboard. The experiences aren't even in the same league.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[TemporalBeing]

Because virtual keyboards on touch screens outright suck to a degree even higher than really bad laptop keyboards.

Maybe half a decade ago, but slide-style keyboards like Swype and Google Keyboard are almost as fast as physical keys. And if you're using them to add field work to office documents, which is a core use-case for a lot of handheld devices in businesses, they win hands-down.

The virtual keyboards do suck compared to a physical keyboard - and they always will simply due to the lack of tactile feedback. Sure, if you hunt-and-peck, you'll probably do just as well on either one.

But once you enter into touch-typing, you really need that tactile feed back in order to know where you are on the keyboard, and the virtual keyboards just don't have it.

And yes, I've used the virtual keyboard on both my Nexus One (with stock Android and CM7) and on my ASUS Transformer Infinity (TF700) tablet. I much prefer the keyboard dock for my tablet; even with the little quirks due to some different keys in their (Home Key, Back Key, no Alt key, search key, etc) it's still magnificently better than the virtual keyboard.

I don't know what my typing speed is any more - but I know on a regular computer keyboard (QWERTY) its well over 100 wpm; Windows computers have a hard time keeping up with me; Linux computers do better as I only rarely get a delay between typing something and seeing it on screen; in either case I have at times fixed stuff before it arrives on screen - stuff even dozens of words behind where the cursor is when I started backing up to fix it. On the tablet, I'd have to guess it could be between 50 and 100 wpm (at present) on the keyboard dock, but may be higher than that. For the virtual keyboard, I'd be hard pressed to do 30 wpm.

And before you start going off about how to count wpm - remember, it's not simply how much you can type, it also how many errors you have to correct. So I may be able to actually type 50-100 wpm on the virtual, but all the errors (and automated fixes) drive it down significantly.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Marxist Hacker 42]

To many, many software engineers, sales is the devil himself.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Worse yet, I tested Office on Android last night on my Samsung SIII Relay- a device with a physical keyboard.

It refused to recognize the keyboard.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[deroby]

Who's to say they don't ?

Don't get me wrong, I do like a lot of the things Google did and does; not all of it, but quite a lot. Same goes for MS & Apple btw. But assuming either of these 3 would do something that hurts their own chart of accounts is simply fooling himself. I'm sure all three companies have plenty of talent around that would love to break/build/tweak and bring out stuff that might be world-changing; but in the end it's the bean-counters that decide what needs to be focused on.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Anonymous Coward]

Who types URLs anyway!?

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Tough Love]

In addition to incredible luck, Microsoft benefits from the incredible stupidity of its customers.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[TemporalBeing]

Who's to say they don't ?

Don't get me wrong, I do like a lot of the things Google did and does; not all of it, but quite a lot. Same goes for MS & Apple btw. But assuming either of these 3 would do something that hurts their own chart of accounts is simply fooling himself. I'm sure all three companies have plenty of talent around that would love to break/build/tweak and bring out stuff that might be world-changing; but in the end it's the bean-counters that decide what needs to be focused on.

True. It's the bean-counters (and upper management like Ballmer) that decide what finally gets delivered. I'm sure they have versions of .NET that run natively on Linux; they probably have versions of MS Office too. But they won't see the light outside of dev team until the bean-counters give the okay; and the bean-counters are very MS world-view centric - that is, all Microsoft and nothing but Microsoft with few exceptions namely for Apple.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[Richy_T]

Nope. I use the onscreen ctrl and alt. Then again, I'm not trying to program on it and administrative tasks typically get scripted after the first time of having to go through a lot of typing. Command line recall is also pretty useful. Unfortunately, command line completion seems to have problems due to the above mentioned missing tab.

Re:Typical Microsoft approach

[dinfinity]

So, do you have any experience with doing similar things on a phone with a slide out hardware keyboard?

They brought back Clippy

[Anonymous Coward]

"...including a classic Microsoft dialog box that offers a choice that makes no sense"

Clippy, is that you?

Re:They brought back Clippy

[ackthpt]

"...including a classic Microsoft dialog box that offers a choice that makes no sense"

Clippy, is that you?

That .. would actually make sense to the 2 or 3 dozen people who actually miss Clippy.

Re:They brought back Clippy

[Mitchell314]

Oh don't tell me you don't feel a little bit of nostalgia for the lil' guy.

Re:They brought back Clippy

[Anonymous Coward]

Clippy, is that you?

Nah, even more classic than Clippy.

Cloud not available. Abort, Retry, Fail?

Re:They brought back Clippy

[mrbester]

"COMMAND.COM not found. Please insert disc to continue"

Re:They brought back Clippy

[Andy Prough]

@AC 12:27AM -- "Clippy, is that you?"

1995 called - they want their stale jokes back.

Re:They brought back Clippy

[shortscruffydave]

That .. would actually make sense to the 2 or 3 people who actually miss Clippy.

FTFY

Re:They brought back Clippy

[PuZZleDucK]

@AC 12:27AM -- "Clippy, is that you?" 1995 called - they want their stale jokes back.

... I see your trying to write a "19xx called" joke, would you like me to:

1) autocomplete "... they want their [x] back"

2) finalize with "... and get off my lawn"

3) go away?

Classic disruptive technology

[mcrbids]

Microsoft has a long standing, dominant set of softwares (Windows/Office) that has been its cash cow for longer than many of us have been old enough to vote. It's the classic case for disruptive technologies:

1) The old, highly profitable incumbent using old technology and charging pretty pennies for it.

2) The new upstart technology, able to do similar stuff in a new context and dramatically cheaper.

3) Incumbent tries to mash its old technology into the new context to preserve its margins.

4) Incumbent dies a death of a thousand paper cuts as the new context, typically more nimble and with an entirely new, cheaper cost structure, slowly peck at the old incumbent until it's irrelevant.

Many of us old-timers remember when IBM ruled the roost for the PC. Some of us remember when DEC was the dominant force for mini computers. A few of us remember when IBM ruled the roost for computing mainframes, before the mini computer took sway.

We should give Microsoft lots of credit. Microsoft had a *long* time at the helm. It was able to cash in on the entire PC revolution, and even much of the Internet revolution, until the Mobile revolution, which it foresaw a decade or more in advance and tried hard (but hardly) to embrace.

For me, going from Windows Phone 6.1 to Android 2.2 on a Motorola Droid 2 was like going from a rusty riding lawn mower to an LXi Convertible. It's sad, really. Microsoft had its part in the mobile game for several hardware generations, and they were beaten so mightily that they are now basically the upstarts trying to be a halfway, third place contender.

Admire what they've done, but this mobile situation is just sad given how hard they tried.

Re:Classic disruptive technology

[houstonbofh]

I do respect what they did. But I am not sad to see them going...

Re:Classic disruptive technology

[BrokenHalo]

A few of us remember when IBM ruled the roost for computing mainframes, before the mini computer took sway.

And an even smaller number of us made quite a lot of money at the time by building a skills-base on "mainframes that weren't IBM". In my case those were CDC, Sperry, Burroughs and Honeywell. Later, as the market moved towards minis, my platforms shifted a bit to include DEC, Data General and Prime. It was fun while it lasted. I was probably a bit behind the curve in getting involved with the IBM PC (as it was), since it took me a while to shake the impression that they were just toys.

Microsoft has had some 30 years to address that impression, and on the whole has pretty much failed.

Re:Classic disruptive technology

[bratwiz]

Amen to that.

Re:Classic disruptive technology

[Bongo]

They tried and I'm sure they know full well their predicament.

What they seem to have been missing though, is a design culture, like you might find in an architect's office or an industrial designer's office. Too many clever geeks are missing that different type of skill it takes to comprehend how and why a gadget would be desirable. Apple seems to have had this culture, but it mattered less on the desktop.

When things shifted to mobile, Apple applied it not just to the shape of the brick, not just as a style for the buttons, or a skin, but through the operating system and apps and functionality and how touch works. And they copied plenty from any other developers who came up with good design ideas also.

I don't think Apple always succeeds with design, like that iTunes social sharing thing they tried, which I for one switched off immediately and wasn't surprised when they dropped it, but good design is usually hard. At least they try.

When Microsoft tries to design something new, it turns out worse than if they hadn't tried. Metro is fine for 1930's style transport signage, it is not good for a desktop interface. Yeah, you looked at typography, great, that's like idea 1. Now try getting to idea 100 and throwing the other 95 in the trash. That's how design works, lots and lots of possibilities, most of which are crap on closer scrutiny.

As for office, at some point, we'll have a more elegant and simpler way to handle business information, which isn't warped to fit a complex desktop publishing to printed page model. Mobile should hopefully finally break that paradigm. But "docs in the cloud" doesn't seem any better. And when Google thought outside the box, they went into some weird universe called Wave, where nobody seems to have thought, why would you want that? Design 101.

Re:Classic disruptive technology

[jon3k]

I'm not sure a Chrysler Seabring is much better than a riding lawn mower. But I agree with your post wholeheartedly, other than that. To Microsoft's credit, they saw "the web" coming a mile away, they just couldn't turn their massive ship fast enough. Microsoft isn't going to "die" anymore than IBM "died", the question just becomes what does the Microsoft of, say, 2023 look like?

Re:Classic disruptive technology

[You're All Wrong]

> We should give Microsoft lots of credit

For being proven, and even convicted, liars, cheats, and thieves.

We gave them our credit when we paid the Microsoft tax on hardware components which we had no intention of using with MS Windows.

Should be called Office Lite

[ackthpt]

Considering the number of people on Android, they could get the impression that Office 365 is a poor hack and opt for something else. Stupid, short-sighted move by Microsoft.

Re:Should be called Office Lite

[0123456]

The features listed sound more like 'Notepad for Android' to me.

Re:Should be called Office Lite

[BrokenHalo]

... they could get the impression that Office 365 is a poor hack and opt for something else.

Indeed. Such as LibreOffice, which is (I read) in active development, and available in pre-alpha form for Android already.

There will no doubt be a chorus in favour of so-called "cloud"-based office applications, but I don't see any likelihood of localhost programs dying out soon. There are still many (myself included) who don't trust other people's servers, or who (also including myself) who can't count on a permanent connection to the internet.

Re:Should be called Office Lite

[frinkster]

Indeed. Such as LibreOffice, which is (I read) in active development, and available in pre-alpha form for Android already.

Are you suggesting that people should choose a pre-alpha version of an office suite over the Microsoft offering, or are you suggesting that they wait to type up their documents until LibreOffice is available as a 1.0 release?

Re:Should be called Office Lite

[BrokenHalo]

From what I've read, the Microsoft offering is only alpha quality, so people might indeed find it worthwhile to try the free apk. In any case, it looks like the LibreOffice version is moving along, so you won't have to wait long.

Personally, I don't care, yet. When I eventually get a tablet, this will probably become important, but I am not going to torture myself by typing documents on my android phone. That's what my laptop and desktop machines are for.

Office365 login is broken

[DigiShaman]

Started this afternoon, but the login screen is broken at www.office365.com. Instead, you can access your account at login.microsoftonline.com

BTW, in the process of migrating for a client. And they pull this shit mid-flight into it. Thanks M$!

Seems like a touchy strategy...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I can understand that Microsoft doesn't want to leave Windows RT even deader in the water than it already is (presumably this is why their Android application point-blank doesn't support tablets, only phones); but it strikes me that they might be overplaying their hand.

The market for office suites that are identical to Office is quite large, quite lucrative; but also has very high barriers to entry. Even Microsoft has shown limited ability (at least within a useful timeframe) to rebuild such a beast (notably, they had to drag all of Windows Desktop mode, and the supporting libraries, into the otherwise all-Metro Windows RT to support Office, even then lacking some features, because they have no 'metro' Office suite.)

Unfortunately for them, while the market for somewhat-compatible-with-Office office suites isn't nearly as lucrative, it's substantially more competitive, with comparatively low barriers to entry and some competent players.

Microsoft seems to be playing with crippling their offerings of a somewhat-compatible-with-Office software package as though they were working from the position of strength provided by selling a 100% Office office suite. Which, outside of Windows proper, they don't do, and may not even be able to do. That seems like it isn't going to work out exactly as planned...

Re:Seems like a touchy strategy...

[OhANameWhatName]

working from the position of strength provided by selling a 100% Office office suite

This is all which holds businesses back from using any other office suite. The office suite they use must be compatible with MS Office because everyone else uses MS Office. Every release or two, Microsoft creates a new file format .. it then takes the competitors 5 years to catch up at which time, MS releases a new file format.

If the creators of the other office suites made a 100% Office office suite, there would be no competition. Until that time (which I believe will come), Microsoft will continue to leverage Office in whatever way they can. And who could blame them? They have always and continue to make bazillions of dollars doing this.

Is it dumb to make a 'not very good' 100% Office suite for Android? Yes, very dumb. Will MS feel the pain of this stupidity? Nope, they'll profit even more from it.

Re:Seems like a touchy strategy...

[Anonymous Coward]

> this is why their Android application point-blank doesn't support tablets, only phones

What about phablets? Where do they draw the line? (size/features)

Re:Seems like a touchy strategy...

[CaptQuark]

Every release or two, Microsoft creates a new file format .. it then takes the competitors 5 years to catch up at which time, MS releases a new file format.

Microsoft opened the barn doors when they pushed to have the office format declared an Open Standard. They were very nervous that other file formats would be declared the new preferred open format by governments and organizations trying to get away from closed, undocumented, and proprietary formats. This has allowed other office suites to accurately read and write documents in Microsoft's formats. If Microsoft now tries to change their format again, without documenting all the changes, they risk having the Office 2010 format declared the only supported file format users are allowed to use by many companies. Microsoft's last couple of releases have done nothing but change the UI or licensing terms without adding anything substantive.

The horse has left the barn and Microsoft will have a devil of a time getting it back in.

Re:Seems like a touchy strategy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Crippling freeware/open-source/free apps in order to lure the customer into a paying solution or profit from him in any other way is as old as the industry itself.

Re:Seems like a touchy strategy...

[JImbob0i0]

But did any version of MS Office actually use the ISO/IEC 29500:2008 standard in the end?

There was so much hand waving and so on - especially given the Office spec this was based on used the ECMA standard - and a few ethereal promises later on ...

But did they ever (so far as was possible given the appalling state of the spec) actually get to implementing what was agreed on?

Re:Seems like a touchy strategy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Much of the "appalling state" doesn't exist in the final spec. Office 2007 SP2 conforms to the transitional version of the ISO spec. Office 2010 reads the strict version of the spec and writes the transitional version. Office 2013 can read and write both the strict and transitional versions.

Re:Seems like a touchy strategy...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"Is it dumb to make a 'not very good' 100% Office suite for Android? Yes, very dumb. Will MS feel the pain of this stupidity? Nope, they'll profit even more from it."

I'm not sure I made this aspect of my argument sufficiently clear: "100% Office" is something that even Microsoft only has one of: Office version whatever on Windows. Office for OSX differs in a number of respects, even Office on Windows RT, which is almost entirely a straight port of 'real' Office is missing a few things unless they've finally finished it. They simply don't have an Office-compatible 'Office' for Metro/WinRT, or for OSX, or for Android. Best case, they probably offer the not-office products that are least likely to horribly mutilate documents produced by Office, or to produce documents that are horribly mangled when opened in Office. That's certainly good; but it's a much thinner advantage over the third parties.

That's what seems potentially troubled about MS's crippling game: If they can't sell you on Windows, they don't actually have an 'upsell' for their crippled version. They just have a crippled version, handicapped by strategic considerations, fighting against 3rd party products that are as good as their sellers can make them(or are crippled cheap/demo versions of 'real' versions that are also available for the platform.)

Trojan Horse

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do I get the feeling this will not be good for me?

I love it!

[Anonymous Coward]

First they killed the Window OS with Windows 8. Then they killed the Windows tablet with Windows RT. Now they're killing MS Office with MS Office For Android.

Is there really anything left to kill?

I love it!

Re:I love it!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot about xbone. Hint: the dog dies.

Re:I love it!

[Zelos]

They tried pretty hard to kill off Windows Phone by orphaning their existing WP7 users and apps with the switch to WP8. It still seems to be limping along somehow though.

Re:I love it!

[Anonymous Coward]

SQL Server.

Re:I love it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ballmer should kill himself as a final act.

Re:I love it!

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how the Apple and Linux fags try to keep telling us MS is dead while they still have over 90% of the total desktop and laptop markets.

Re:I love it!

[jrumney]

They tried pretty hard to kill off Windows Phone by orphaning their existing WP7 users and apps with the switch to WP8.

To be fair, there wasn't really a lot to kill there though.

It still seems to be limping along somehow though.

They could do it again with Windows Phone 9 (complete change in direction: forth time lucky?) and hardly anyone would notice.

Just Perfect in Windows Phone

[sites4you]

I understand that microsoft wants to serve their user even in android mobile but their software is only perfect when it is applied in their own os and not in other OS.

Re:Just Perfect in Windows Phone

[rudy_wayne]

I understand that microsoft wants to serve their user even in android mobile but their software is only perfect when it is applied in their own os and not in other OS.

The OS is irrelevant. Windows, OSX, whatever, it doesn't matter. The problem is trying to put an application like Office on a phone. Sorry, but that's just stupid.

Re:Just Perfect in Windows Phone

[symbolset]

Of course. Because the ultimate utility of integrating your OS with your office suite is to provide those special secret OS hooks that make your app work better than any other, and the frequent special updates that make competing apps not work at all. Kind of hard for them to get either of those on Android.

Re:Just Perfect in Windows Phone

[tlhIngan]

I understand that microsoft wants to serve their user even in android mobile but their software is only perfect when it is applied in their own os and not in other OS.

Except the one in Windows 8 RT and Windows Phone are standalone Office.

The office for Android and iOS are front ends to Office365, the cloud version of Office, and a subscription service.

Microsoft should make an effort to making these Office365 clients good because if they're good, they promote usage of Office365 and thus, subscription revenue. In fact, it's hard to buy regular Office these days because all you see everywhere are Office365 cards.

Re:Just Perfect in Windows Phone

[EzInKy]

Yeah, I guess you can't blame them from trying to extend their near monopoly of the desktop to tablets and phones. Still, you have to wonder how long it will take Microsoft to accept the inevitable and start playing nice with everyone else? It really would is sad to think they are willing to commit suicide to preserve their lock-in. Oh well, what will be will be.

Re:Just Perfect in Windows Phone

[edibobb]

Not even close to perfect.

Re:Just Perfect in Windows Phone

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't about local applications, it's a front end to their web based office suite. Which makes you the stupid one.

Other Office Suites are worth the growing pains

[Anonymous Coward]

CSB time, you've been warned...

I remember way back in university when I was working in an ancient version of Word for Windows 3.1. The thing was bad for pagination when it came to printing -- it would either duplicate passages or omit them entirely if there was a footnote issue. I was lucky it didn't cost me a failing grade on a paper which I hastily printed off and assumed would just work. Still, it was Microsoft, and it was Word, so I stuck it out, and worked through the issues, because it was worth going through the growing pains for what seemed like a promising word processor.

Fast forward to today. I've been messing about Scribus, which had a weird WYSIWYG failure where what was rendered to the screen didn't show up on output. After a printout I messed about with the font sizes and it was able to print properly. It was a weird buggy thing -- it was originally 40pt or so, and it got corrected by changing to 30pt and then going back to 40pt. Shrug. Whatever, even if it's at a point where it's similar to the issues with Word for Windows 3.1, or even if it's a step behind where QuarkXPress was a decade or so ago, I'm finding it's still worth the hassle. Not only because of the great price point, but because you know that they're not going to pull this corporate-driven nonsense.

The more people realize that there's some phenomenal stuff out there in open source, the more migrations that happen, the more usage is going to drive up interest and help improve development.

Even if you make the argument that open source software is still a decade behind the commercial stuff, it must be said that where the commercial stuff was a decade ago is still more than adequate for today's needs, and that if we're reaching that point, it's a serious victory. It's seriously worth sticking it out with today's OS stuff, because it's only going to get better.

Re:Other Office Suites are worth the growing pains

[Anonymous Coward]

> phenomenal stuff out there in open source

Does that no go against everything you have just said above? Or have you redefined "phenomenal" to mean "as good a Word for Windows 3.1"?

Re:Other Office Suites are worth the growing pains

[Anonymous Coward]

Except MS Word is a word processor, which is completely different in features/abilities from a desktop publishing program like Scribus; Open/Libre Office or Callista would be much better comparisons for Word. If you're doing work that hinges on having a specific detailed page layout like a textbook or brochure, Scribus is the right pick -- if you're writing a novel or termpaper, then the text, basic styling (italics, margins, line spacing) and tools specific to writing (eg. advanced find/replace, track changes, great thesaurus) then a word processor is more helpful. (Of course, if you're writing a plain document that doesn't need any particular tools beyond font/margins, then either program will suffice.)

Perfect meaning awful

[tuppe666]

perfect when it is applied in their own os and not in other OS.

What you are implying is that Microsoft cannot code cross platform Applications in a cross platform world. Android has passed 900,000,000 Users and is set to eclipse Windows(On around 1.2 Billion Users) this year. Microsoft need to compete, and to do so they need to produce first class products. Creating poor versions, will further tarnish an already poor brand...All of us use Microsoft's Software, and are more than aware how far from perfect it is on its own platform.

Re:Perfect meaning awful

[The Cisco Kid]

I take exception to your "all of us use MS software", despite your being somewhat vague about which "us" you are referring to.

Believe it or not, there are a very large number of people that DO NOT "use MS software". In fact the readership of this site probably has a higher proportion thereof than other more "mainstream" sites do.

Unless by "us" you mean "clueless end users living under a rock" or "office drones locked in by their CIO's choice"..

Oh no.

[symbolset]

Microsoft wouldn't want to start looking outdated and monopoloistic.

not a big deal this particular strategy tax

[AlephNaut]

Normally I'd say this was a bad for users kind of decision. But honestly office on a phone is mostly irrelevant. Now that OneNote on android and ios are tolerable I think they've hedged their bets well.

Coming from someone that thinks winphone is beautiful but because of network effects will not be a real contender (os/2 warp anyone?)

stupid article

[l3v1]

So, an article about how the app's UI s*cks, with one image, showing almost nothing. I also think the app is no good, but this article brings a new low.

Re:stupid article

[0123456]

To be fair, the phone UI looks better than the new Office UI on PCs.

Re:stupid article

[Opportunist]

Can you at least say "less ugly"? "Better" has this ring that it was a comparative of "good".

Another Nail In An Abusive Monopolist

[tuppe666]

Microsoft still has not learned to compete without being abusive monopolist, especially in a market with many competing products. People buy office for compatibility Insurance...Cue scenarios where a power-point document not working justifies the cost to a home user of £8($12) A month...The cost of a top of the range 7" tablet every two years. Competing products are free or equivalent to a one off payment about the same as Microsoft one month from Microsoft. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.office.officehub read the reviews the product is simply annoying what should be potential customers by overcharging for an Office product.

The fact that this software is impossible to find on the play store(unlike 365 Sex positions...seriously there are not that many)...its incompatible with my devices, and doesn't work on the more useful tablets!? Microsoft do not understand that people will buy into there ecosystem if you offer them a great product...at great value. If those exist, potential customers may be more willing to look at Microsoft's hardware offerings as something more than a sad joke.

Re:Another Nail In An Abusive Monopolist

[Anonymous Coward]

Hurr durr Tuppe666, Google rules, Microsoft are fags, Apple are fags. Hurr durr open your eyes sheeple it's me Tuppe666!

Re:Another Nail In An Abusive Monopolist

[Agent0013]

Microsoft do not understand that people will buy into there ecosystem if you offer them a great product...at great value. If those exist, potential customers may be more willing to look at Microsoft's hardware offerings as something more than a sad joke.

Microsoft does not know how to make a great product. In the past they had what you needed and you didn't really have a choice in the matter. It is like a company selling fart-gas filled air to breathe. Even though it smells, you can't survive without oxygen so you buy it when there is no other choice. Now we have a huge array of choice in what our air smells like and the fart smelling air is looking less and less attractive. There will still be those who are so used to the fart smell that they will claim it is necessary or that it doesn't smell that bad. Perhaps their sense of smell gets damaged over time or they just don't even know what fresh smelling air is like.

It is sad in a way to watch them flounder so badly. For a company that grew so large and dominated so powerfully to fail so spectacularly in almost everything they try lately is just sad. I won't be sad to see them go though. I have developed a taste for the fresher airs out there and won't be trying their new extra-farty air they just put out.

Uhm.. So?

[The Cisco Kid]

I cannot imagine anything that is becoming more and more irrelevant than "MS Office".

There is NOTHING I can imagine wishing to use those applications for, no information I can imagine wanting to enter, store, or process in those formats, on ANY platform.

There is also no reason to be "locked in" to those formats anymore. "Final output" can (and should) be in a format such as PDF regardless of whether its a business producing a report, or an individual submitting a resume. Anyone that sends some information blindly in ANY application specific format is an idiot, and deserves to have it returned or ignored. Anyone that has massive stores of information ("documents") in such formats that hasn't already at least started planning
to migrate it to a standard format (a format cannot be a "standard" if it is not fully and openly documented such that anyone can implement a 100% functional reader/writer from scratch)

MS porting Office to other platforms is a feeble last ditch attempt at remaining relevant, and that is the only reason it might be "News".

Re:Uhm.. So?

[Yunzil]

I cannot imagine anything that is becoming more and more irrelevant than "MS Office".

So you've never been in an office then? Because it's Word and Excel and Powerpoint as far as the eye can see.

TLDR:

[Chompjil]

MS Office for android = bad port, wait scratch that not a port, half assed attempt to port an HTML,Javascript, and ASP into Java application

So wait..

[Rainwulf]

A microsoft product, not tested properly, telling you a more expensive version is better, and with little common sense, designed for hardware that microsoft didnt design?

So, its a standard microsoft product then right? This isnt actually news.

News would be if it worked and worked well.

Re:So wait..

[Opportunist]

No, that would have been a reason to finally open the window and look up to see whether the sky is falling, and then call the red dude and ask him if he has more acceptable temperatures down there than we have up here.

Desktop Monopoly

[tuppe666]

I take exception to your "all of us use MS software", despite your being somewhat vague about which "us" you are referring to.

I'm sorry I was referring to the Desktop Monopoly that Microsoft has had for the past two decades(Now a Desktop App monopoly). My "everyone technical" had used it at some point I think is simply true...not really sure how using it makes you a "clueless end users living under a rock"

You are simply wrong

I don't make my living doing documents

[Anonymous Coward]

For me, Office is a somewhat overly complicated suite of programs that does 100 things that I don't need. I just need to be able to read Word docs and Excel spreadsheets, and rarely make basic annotations/additions. For the audience that does need those 100 things, I can't blame Microsoft for trying to up sell. If you depend on full word processor or spreadsheet functionality and hate M$, ACTIVELY support a platform that lets you do that. Whether that is PayPal to Open Office or agreeing to some Google Doc ads. FWIW, Google Docs is enough for me. TANSTAAFL.

WinCE was once big

[dutchwhizzman]

Apple and Google rule the smart phone world now, but before the iPhone you wanted WinCE devices like the XDA and iPaq. They had the chance and the market position but failed to conquer the iPhone successfully. By the time there was "Apple, BlackBerry and the rest" Google got in and by combining google accounts and multiple vendors offering the same OS, they got their current position. MicroSoft kept trying combining their desktop business model and apps with mobile, resulting in expensive phones that lacked features people wanted and came with features people weren't interested in at that price point. Developers were angry because all their apps needed to be rewritten for newer winCE/windows phone versions and if you wanted a newer windows phone version, you had to buy a new phone with it. There was a lot of inconsistency and doubt about how future proof an investment in the mobile windows phone platform would be for almost any party in the smart phone economy, resulting in people betting on other horses.

MicroSoft had the position, they created it themselves and then lost it once the smart phone really started taking off as a platform. MicroSoft had their way, they worked hard for it but they thought that they could pull another MS-DOS on the organizer-turned-smart-phone and then messed it up.

Re:WinCE was once big

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apple and Google rule the smart phone world now, but before the iPhone you wanted WinCE devices like the XDA and iPaq. ... MicroSoft had the position, they created it themselves and then lost it once the smart phone really started taking off as a platform."

Only in USA. In other parts of the world Nokia and Symbian dominated the smartphone markets.

Re:WinCE was once big

[Anonymous Coward]

before the iPhone you wanted WinCE devices like the XDA and iPaq

Maybe you did, but I sure didn't. Before iPhone, smart phones and PDAs weren't even on my radar. I had to look up what XDA and iPaq were, and at this point I still don't know what pre-iPhone device XDA might have been, because a search for XDA just brings up stuff (mainly for Android) related to the XDA-Developers community. Maybe you meant "XDA" as a category of devices: I can't tell.
 
My point being, even if WinCE devices were the king of the PDA world before iPhone, they were the king of a pitiful market compared to the market iPhone created, by basically recreating the smart phone category altogether. And by my recollection, WinCE devices were nowhere near 'king'. They were underpowered, overpriced and feature poor, and plagued with the same confusion as current 'not Windows' Windows devices (why can't they do what 'real' Windows can).

Re:WinCE was once big

[dfghjk]

Microsoft never had the position and WinCE devices were never wanted. Prior to iOS and Android there was Blackberry and Palm (and Symbian). Microsoft was only an alternative and always a pretty crappy one. You need to get your history straight.

Fact is, Apple only had an opening in smartphones because none of the other vendors could make a product that worked. Palm had nice apps but its OS was primitive and unstable. Symbian was the opposite, good OS but terrible apps. MS was bloated and slow with bad human factors and devices with awful battery life. Apple's "innovation" was a device that didn't crash several times a day, had good human factors, and wasn't tethered to a wall outlet. Meanwhile, souped up Blackberry pagers were popular with people who needed to get work done.

The problem with MS isn't that they had the market and lost it, it's that they never made a product worth having and no one wanted it.

Re:WinCE was once big

[tverbeek]

"Apple and Google rule the smart phone world now, but before the iPhone you wanted WinCE devices like the XDA and iPaq."

No, I very seriously did not. For years I nursed along an old Psion PDA running an early version of SymbianOS, holding it together with tape and paper clips (literally), rather than use a "wince" device. (I tried and gave up on a PalmOS device too.) The original iPhone allowed me to retire that old unit, because there was finally a modern piece of hardware with software I found usable.

Re:WinCE was once big

[TemporalBeing]

Apple and Google rule the smart phone world now, but before the iPhone you wanted WinCE devices like the XDA and iPaq.

I don't know about you, but I always tried to avoid any WinCE devices.

I first played with a WinCE device in 1998 - a Liberty netbook (don't rember who made it). The thing was horribly cramped, too damn small, and the screen was just a desktop on a smaller screen. It sucked. I haven't seen anything in the WinCE device line that has made me want to try it again - they all look to have the same qualities as that device in 1998.

Re:WinCE was once big

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The one WinCE feature I still miss is Activesync.

But Google Drive is a pretty good substitute. I just wish there was a way to achieve outlook integration better.

Office still relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems Microsoft still thinks Office is a killer app. The only one still worth something is Excel. The rest can be replaced with better alternatives for most people.

Libreoffice Calc

[tuppe666]

Seems Microsoft still thinks Office is a killer app. The only one still worth something is Excel. The rest can be replaced with better alternatives for most people.

There is nothing special about Excel. I personally Prefer Calc, although they are very similar.

Re:Libreoffice Calc

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing special about Excel. Except for a decade of non programmer spreadsheets running entire companies.

Two words

[temcat]

Softmaker Office.

Re:Two words

[Anonymous Coward]

One word: Yep.

Re:Two words

[moronoxyd]

Softmaker Office user on Windows, Linux, Windows Mobile (back in the day), Android.

Re:FUck Microsharft

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely. They are almost irrelevant now, as Apple will be soon.

China phone maker Xiaomi took 30,000,000 orders for its new "Red Rice" phone in just 5 hours.

http://www.gizchai.com/2013/08/30000000-xiaomi-hongmi-aka-xiaomi-red.html

pfff..

[SuperDre]

It's better than having nothing.. It's the first release and with everything (these days, especially on mobile) it does have it's flaws, but most of those are simple fixes..and who can blame MS for providing better support on their own mobile OS as they know it much better, it's not like Google has such a great support of their (few) apps on other mobile OSses.. Give it a few updates and I think the Office for android will be pretty good..

Skype

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of what happened to skype on Linux and mobile devices after M$ took over.
Linux fell way behind in version numbers, and both mobile (ios and android) and Linux versions of the client had bad performance and memory leaks everywhere.

Ironic and funny...

[cbope]

I find it funny that if the same thing happened on iOS with a different company, the comments would be more like "a great app that leaves out the things you don't really need" and "well optimized user interface that doesn't get in the way".

Since it's MS, it's "woefully incomplete" if it doesn't include every single feature of desktop Office, even if 99.9% of users don't use them.

And I really don't understand all the WP8 hate here on slashdot. I've been using a Lumia 820 for about half a year now and it's by far the best phone I've had in some time. Sure, it's not perfect, but I generally prefer it to iOS (I also heavily use an iPad). To top it off, there are no "perfect" devices out there, and never will be. Yes, there are still a few (very few actually) big name apps MIA, but nothing that makes me want to switch to something else. People that say a missing official Instagram app are keeping them away are just proving how lame they are. As a serious amateur photographer, I could care less about a phone app that makes my photos look like shitty instant photos from the 70's, yeah nostalgia and all that crap. Hell, most people using Instagram today probably weren't even alive to experience how bad those instant photos (and cameras) really were. Yes, I had an instant Polaroid in the 70's, and yes, I couldn't wait to get a real camera. The only app I miss that makes me pull out my iPad is Flipboard, and that's been announced for WP8. I imagine that once I get Flipboard on WP8, my iPad will see a LOT less use. iOS is much more clunky and slow compared to WP8 and I've never liked the black text on white/gray theme of iOS devices (and Mac too). Give me white text on a dark background any day. /rant over

Who cares?

[aaaaaaargh!]

What do you want with an office package on a phone or tablet anyway? Are there really any people who write lengthy documents on their glossy, greasy tablet touch screens?

Really, this telephone and tablet hype bullshit is just becoming ridiculous.

Re:Who cares?

[Errol backfiring]

Are there really any people who write lengthy documents on their glossy, greasy tablet touch screens?

Probably not that many. However, there may be more people who edit an existing lengthy document on a portable device.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm probably not typical, but I do a good deal of writing on a tablet. I carry a 10" tablet with bluetooth keyboard pretty much everywhere with the idea of whenever I have time to write (fiction) I can just go at it.

After trying a bunch of Android office suites, I settled on My Writing Spot. It's quite barebones with no formatting to speak of. But it works to just write plain text with a minimum of fuss. When the time comes to share what I've written, I pull the text into OpenOffice on a Windows PC to make any formatting adjustments I need.

So I guess my point is a demand does exist for word processing on mobile devices, but it's probably a smaller niche consisting of those who just want to be able to write on-the-fly, and those who need quick access to a full-fledged Office document when they are away from their PC.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you want with an office package on a phone or tablet anyway? Are there really any people who write lengthy documents on their glossy, greasy tablet touch screens?

Really, this telephone and tablet hype bullshit is just becoming ridiculous.

I just bought my son a $60 android tablet for his birthday, reflashed it to jellybean, its pretty sweet, light, size of a small netbook, amazing battery life but miniscule price so if he breaks it no tears. It has a hardwired keyboard with a synaptics touchpad rather than a touchscreen, so I can imagine him finding libre office and other stuff pretty useful.
Google play thought it was a phone and some of the dumber facebook app's he likes say theyre not compatible with a phone also, its really just a netbook running android.

I would rather stick wasps up my ass than use a tablet for general purpose computing though. I still use a "grandad box" with gentoo on it.

Re:Who cares?

[excelsior_gr]

There definitely are thousands of perfectionist workaholic managers that absolutely HAVE to take a look at the presentation that you will be holding tomorrow, although they are on vacation, camping trip or whatever and they don't have a laptop with a umts stick. They will be using said office package to natively open the document you'll send them so that absolutely no formatting is distorted.

Yes, I know of people that think this way. Sadly.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

alot of people may dictate to their portable device, then go back to clean up things like punctuation, formatting, and layout. things a tablet may be pretty good for. I know I can talk much faster then I can type. the system does need to be trained to your accent and speech manerisms though.

Apple Copies Great Design

[tuppe666]

I find it funny that if the same thing happened on iOS with a different company, the comments would be more like "a great app that leaves out the things you don't really need" and "well optimized user interface that doesn't get in the way".

Since it's MS, it's "woefully incomplete"....

The bottom line is Metro is not great design. iOS is now unfairly being compared to Vista..when in reality it is simply behind Android, absorbing many much needed Android (and WebOS) like features into iOS. Its difficult to remember with its now "Fuck the American worker" advertisements while spilling design gobbligook that is simply offensive...how awesome iOS was when it was released, and why its so difficult to move on from. Samsung internal 132-page document comparison wrongfully used in the trial shows how far ahead iOS was than Android (and how quickly it has fallen behind) http://www.scribd.com/doc/102317767/Samsung-Relative-Evaluation-Report-on-S1-iPhone it also highlights some great design in iOS.

The bottom line is *simplifying* and *woefully incomplete* are not the same thing, one provides better access to better access to functions you need in a convenient; rational; intuitive form; The other makes the program unusable. completely different ends of the spectrum.

Isn't this old news?

[Phoeniyx]

I remember reading about this topic days ago. If it was on slashdot, then it's a duplicate. If it was somewhere else, then this is not really "news".

Our exper. with ASUS' Win 8 tab was bad enough...

[ivi]

After our disappointment with an ASUS Win 8 tab,
I wouldn't waste my time looking into Office 365.

(I also dislike the annual license fee deal attached
to Office 365... Imagine folks who are about to re-
tire, trying to fit an extra $100 -rent- per computer
for a -software- product!)

Nowhere near it

[dbIII]

Even the tiny keyboard on my N900 is vastly easier to use than the virtual android things.

MS built the barn

[dbIII]

I can import binary data files from 1968 due to a published standard, but MS took a huge step backwards to deliberately prevent people from opening files without giving money to MS. It wouldn't be so bad if they hadn't fucked it up so badly that some of their old data formats are orphened and won't display as designed in even updated versions of their own software.

Old tactics, really

[Camael]

And much of their old dominance was founded on their monopoly of the OS through windows, and they were not shy about (ab)using it.

For example, they allegedly tweaked Win95 to kill WordPerfect. Novell sued but lost the court case.

Novell had accused the company of crippling WordPerfect, by deliberately removing Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) which it used from windows 95, even though they were present in the beta version of the operating system.

To kill off Netscape, they not only bundled IE with every copy of Windows but also allegedly altered or manipulated its application programming interfaces (APIs) in the OS to favor Internet Explorer over third party web browsers. This led directly to the anti-trust lawsuit by the government against MS.

Now that the fight is over mobile and tablet space, MS is still sticking to its game plan by trying to leverage its old dominance into these new markets. Hence you only get the full product (in this case, Office) if you use Winph8 for mobile or Surface Pro for tablets. Their hand is weaker though since they do not control the underlying OS (iOS and Android) so they are relying on attachment to Office to drive the numbers.

Re:Old tactics, really

[Anonymous Coward]

The DOJ should have split MS many years ago. I see 6 distinct companies: Desktop and mobile software; Server and backend Software; Gaming and entertainment Software/services; OS - Server, Mobile and Desktop; Hardware (yes, the Xbox would sit here); Cloud services.

Re:Old tactics, really

[TemporalBeing]

And much of their old dominance was founded on their monopoly of the OS through windows, and they were not shy about (ab)using it.

True. And they figured they could just copy the Desktop model onto smaller devices. Just like with Win8 they are trying to push the (failed) mobile interface onto the Desktop, resulting in (you guessed it) equal failure.

For example, they allegedly tweaked Win95 to kill WordPerfect. Novell sued but lost the court case.

Novell had accused the company of crippling WordPerfect, by deliberately removing Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) which it used from windows 95, even though they were present in the beta version of the operating system.

Actually the court case was put on hold while the U.S DoJ pursued the Anti-trust. It has since been resumed, and is now actively in the court system, at least in the U.S Courts.

To kill off Netscape, they not only bundled IE with every copy of Windows but also allegedly altered or manipulated its application programming interfaces (APIs) in the OS to favor Internet Explorer over third party web browsers. This led directly to the anti-trust lawsuit by the government against MS.

It was one of many things that brought about the Anti-trust lawsuits by the U.S DoJ, another being Novell's anti-trust suit, another being SaMBa's suit, and more. Of course, the demise of Netscape brought us Thunderbird and Firefox. The results of the anti-trust trial brought official documentation for the CIFS/SMB/AD protocols used by Windows for the SaMBa team (which they paid $14k for) so they now have 100% compatibility, and more.

Now that the fight is over mobile and tablet space, MS is still sticking to its game plan by trying to leverage its old dominance into these new markets. Hence you only get the full product (in this case, Office) if you use Winph8 for mobile or Surface Pro for tablets. Their hand is weaker though since they do not control the underlying OS (iOS and Android) so they are relying on attachment to Office to drive the numbers.

They could very easily make equivalent version on all platforms that are just as capable as what is on the Windows Desktop, or offered by Office 365 subscriptions. The fact is they are choosing not to in (vain) hopes of trying to drive people to the Windows platform.

Re:FUck Microsharft

[Jeeeb]

Precisely. They are almost irrelevant now, as Apple will be soon. China phone maker Xiaomi took 30,000,000 orders for its new "Red Rice" phone in just 5 hours. http://www.gizchai.com/2013/08/30000000-xiaomi-hongmi-aka-xiaomi-red.html

Yes.. 2-3% of China's population ordered that phone within 5 hours of release... I'm sure that press release is completely bullshit free.

Forget Office 365, use Softmaker office on Android

[Anonymous Coward]

It is hard to find a compelling reason to use MS Office outside of Windows (x86/x64) and Mac: the mobile versions are far from 100% compatible with documents created with MS Office on Windows. In fact, last time I compared some competing products were far more compatible with my documents than Microsoft's own suite!
My favorite is Softmaker, they have had an Android version of their suite : www.softmaker.com/english/ofa_en.htm
They aren't a newcomer either, I used to run Softoffice Textmaker on my Zaurus PDA. Oh, memories... :-)

Good luck Microsoft, you'll need it

[water-and-sewer]

There's a couple of problems here.

The first is that Microsoft still assumes that the world wants to do nothing better with their devices that make Word docs and spreadsheets and PPT presentations, and "consume media" (I hate that expression). Meanwhile, the world has found lots of other fun things to do with their devices, and tablets and smartphones are great at doing a lot of them. And those same devices are not that great for doing a lot of serious number crunching, presentation making, and so on. (It's not impossible, but I think power users of ipads etc. would tell you it's not a better experience).

The second problem is that there are other suites out there that work pretty damn well, even off line. I'm a huge fan of softmaker office on both the desktop and on Android. I use it on my Google Nexus 7 to take notes in meetings, then transfer to my desktop for finishing up and distributing, etc. It works perfectly well with no wifi connection available, and is a pretty damned powerful bit of software that's getting good reviews.

The third problem, as mentioned above, is the fact that publishing a sub-standard product for the competing product might work when you've got the market lead and people are already interested in your platform. But when you're playing catch up, it's a loser's strategy. Who wants to buy a crappy version of Office365 only to find out it works better on a platform few others use, with hardware you don't like and don't want to buy, etc.?

This losing strategy is sponsored by Steve "Anchor" Ballmer, sinking Microsoft since the day he took the helm. Watch out for those rocks ahead, captain!

Re:Good luck Microsoft, you'll need it

[Yunzil]

The first is that Microsoft still assumes that the world wants to do nothing better with their devices that make Word docs and spreadsheets and PPT presentations, and "consume media" (I hate that expression). Meanwhile, the world has found lots of other fun things to do with their devices, and tablets and smartphones are great at doing a lot of them

Like what? Consuming more media? What exactly are these amazing things that people are doing with their devices apart from a) playing games, b) posting on the Internet, or c) watching Youtube cat videos?

Get King Office ...

[gstoddart]

If you have an Android device, get King Office.

It'll natively write Doc, PPT, XLS and TXT files. It seems to be a nice interface for a touch screen and isn't ad-ridden, and has integrations to store stuff in the cloud.

Sorry Microsoft, but someone has beaten you to the punch and delivered something which works for me.

No way!

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG! An incomplete port of a gigantic software suite! You mean it isn't perfect and has bugs ? No way! This is BIG news!

Re:FUck Microsharft

[Anonymous Coward]

Resellers order them from manufacturers, it's not individual retail buyers you moron.

If mobile Office really is that important to you

[InsGadget]

Maybe you really should just get a Windows Phone? And where's the outrage for the nonexistent access to Google services on Windows Phone? Even though there are more than 30 million WPs in the wild, Google is obviously doing their best to drive people to Android. I guess everyone's just crying because Android is the market share leader?

Typical approach

[tverbeek]

This typical Microsoft approach is simply... typical. Ever tried accessing iCloud.com on an Android device?

Re:Typical approach

[Anonymous Coward]

I have tried and it's working flawlessly.

Delay is curator's fault

[tepples]

It's the fault of whoever is curating the platform. Apple and Microsoft curate their mobile platforms more tightly than Google curates its, and this causes delay.

Unlike WP7, Android has NDK

[tepples]

Rewrite what? Android supports NDK for integrating existing C++ code into a project. It's Windows Phone 7 that doesn't support native apps.

How phones can be defined

[tepples]

Speculation: One line that can be drawn is whether or not a device supports cellular telephony, not just cellular data. Another is that Android classifies screens by their physical size. Phone-sized devices end up in one bin and tablets in another.

When the desktop itself loses market share

[tepples]

I think the Apple and Linux fans' point is that desktop and laptop are themselves shrinking as a fraction of the computing market.

Re:When the desktop itself loses market share

[readingaccount]

Well sure the Linux fans would say that. Since Linux has never achieved mainstream success on the desktop despite years of fans saying it would, it makes sense to move the goalposts and say that it doesn't matter anymore. It's the easiest way to "win" without losing cred.

Whatever is said though, it's still a fact that right here and now, and probably still for many years in the future, desktops/laptops are going to be the dominant platform for geeks, PC gamers and most people doing actual work which requires a computer of some sort. Tablets and mobiles simply aren't as efficient for most tasks and have yet to obtain the massive amount of legacy and specialist software that exists on Windows.

If Word were free

[tepples]

Perhaps phenomenal means on par with Word for Windows 3.1 combined with free as in speech or beer or both.

Android 4.3 breaks some Bluetooth keyboards

[tepples]

I carry a 10" tablet with bluetooth keyboard pretty much everywhere

I too own an Android tablet, and I bought a ZAGGkeys Flex keyboard for it. But what's a good way to work around the fact that Android 4.3 broke a lot of Bluetooth keyboards, such as the ZAGGkeys Flex? (Search the web for Android 4.3 ZAGGkeys.)

A recurring fee

[tepples]

I also dislike the annual license fee deal attached to Office 365... Imagine folks who are about to re- tire, trying to fit an extra $100 -rent- per computer for a -software- product!

Some fans of iOS, which charges a recurring fee for the ability to run self-signed software, claim that a recurring fee like this is a good thing because it helps to keep out the nonprofessionals who more often produce shoddy work. (Ha ha ha, boom boom.)

Carry two devices?

[tepples]

Because CDMA2000 carriers charge per device, it would cost twice as much per month to carry a Windows Phone phone for Office and an Android phone for everything else.

Clashing messages

[david_thornley]

What Microsoft wants people to think: "This Office stuff on Android is not working. I need to get a Windows 8 tablet."

What people are going to think: "This Office stuff on Android is not working. I guess Office sucks on anything mobile."

Vacuum joke

[Anonymous Coward]

2002's called. They want their joke back, NOW !!.!