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Google Attacks Microsoft Again: Android 4.4 Ships With Quickoffice

Posted by timothy on from the file-formats-yet-again dept.

An anonymous reader writes "With Android 4.4 KitKat, Google's biggest blow to Microsoft isn't against Windows Phone. It's against Microsoft Office. You see, KitKat ships with Quickoffice, letting you edit Microsoft Office documents, spreadsheets, and presentations on the go, without paying a dime, straight out of the box. This tidbit was largely lost in the news yesterday, given the large number of improvements and new features that KitKat offers. Yet it's a very big deal: every Android user that upgrades to KitKat will get Google's Quickoffice, and every new Android device (starting with the Nexus 5) that ships with KitKat or higher will also get Quickoffice."

9 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Google Uses Quick Office... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's NOT super effective.

    Let's get real. An office-ish app on a smart phone is NOT a challenge to a full blown desktop office suite. To suggest that it is indicates an absolute lack of understanding of the user base and use cases for office suites.

    1. Re:Google Uses Quick Office... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So plug that mini-HDMI into your TV and get a Bluetooth keyboard. Is that challenge enough for you?

  2. War between Google and Microsoft getting hotter. by boorack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In other news patent cartel created by Microsoft and Apple attacks Google and others. Somewhat sad to see when one side of this battle uses product superiority and the other one resorts to lawyers and patent trolls. It just underscores roteness and corrupion of US corporate economy.

  3. Re:Eh by Desler · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's not. This is simply click bait.

  4. Re:Microsoft all over again by Reaperducer · · Score: 1, Insightful

    My SonyEricsson m600c did this back in 2006. Is this what passes for "innovation" at Google these days?

    --
    -- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
  5. Re:I smell antitrust lawsuits by bjwest · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wouldn't that only apply if MS made an Android office app, and Google was preventing the user from installing it?

    I don't see how it could be considered antitrust to create something that competes with nothing.

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    --- Keep the choice with the user..
  6. Apple not MS by grub · · Score: 5, Insightful


    This is more of an attack against Apple giving away the iWork package for free. MS is barely a blip on the radar.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  7. Re:quickoffice is free and available to any Androi by CronoCloud · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You can still install the newer version on Google Play if your tablet came installed with the old QuickOffice HD, I just did it on a Dell Streak 7.

  8. Re:Actually, that's an OEM problem. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you are a Open Handset Alliance, you are not allowed to fork Android. Expulsion awaits if you do so. If you are not member of Open Handset Alliance, you are not allowed to use the Android trademark and include the app store (and other things) on your phone that runs the Android fork.

    See the ugly truth at http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/
    Open source means nothing to Google.