Microsoft Launches Office For iPad: Includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

An anonymous reader writes "At an event in San Francisco today, Microsoft Office General Manager Julia White unveiled Office for iPad, featuring Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The new suite, which supports viewing but not editing for free, will go live in Apple's App Store at 11:00AM PDT (2:00PM EST). Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for iPad feature a ribbon interface just like the one featured in Office for Windows and OS X. The trio of apps are much more powerful on the tablet than the smartphone, but naturally aren't comparable to the desktop versions."

Comments

Perfect

[lgw]

The absolute best use of a phone in the office IMO is to connect the meeting-room projector/screen to the phone HDMI out and project without needing a laptop. When I worked at VMware we'd do this with a remote desktop app back to a Windows desktop, but just running PPT/Word native is even easier. Plus the opportunities for embarrassing chats popping up are that much better!

Re:Perfect

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Where'd you work? Prom B? :-)

Re:Perfect

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't we go back to text editors and LaTeX to produce the final document?

Re: Perfect

[robmv]

You don't activate airplane mode before a presentation? How rude!

Re: Perfect

[lgw]

You'd think that would be obvious, wouldn't you. :)

Re:Perfect

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Is it really even needed for that though?

One thing I keep hearing from the MS fans (yes, they very much exist) is how great it is to have Office for free with Windows RT (Yep, that dead bastardized OS still has fans.) They insist that it is the killer mobile app that makes those devices (windows phone, surface) worth having. Invariably you run into one problem with that statement though: Nobody is buying either of them. If this is really such a killer app, then why isn't it flying off of shelves? I think I know the answer to that: Nobody needs office suites anymore.

Consider these:

Word: How often do you write formal letters anymore to the point that you MUST have Word? Usually it's just an email, sms, or a tweet if you're the social network type. None of those need or even expect fancy formatting, which is what Word is all about. In fact, in those settings, such things are often shunned because they take away from brevity. But suppose you do on occasion need to write a formal letter; you probably aren't going to do fancy formatting on a mobile device. Instead you're going to draft your letter while the thoughts are in your head on an app like evernote, maybe email it to yourself, and then copy and paste it into Word on a desktop system where you'll do all of that fancy shit. You certainly won't write even a half decent resume on a mobile device.

PowerPoint: I don't think I need to explain the problems with creating presentations on mobile devices (kind of annoying to pull up your images and other whatnots and then scale and position them properly using just your fingers, even with the best of NUIs.) But let's set aside that entirely. Look at how much a lot of organizations now hate powerpoint. The DoD says it's making its servicemembers dumber and wants to get rid of it entirely. Certain educational institutes are preferring the old (well, kind of old) whiteboard again.

Excel: Excel is perhaps one of the most useful components of office. Problem is, MS Office suffers a bit from the reverse of the Pareto Principle: 80% of its users only use 20% of its features. This is especially true for Excel where you don't use a whole lot of its more advanced features. That said, MS Excel is overkill (and expensive, I believe $80 buys you a license for ONE PC, and it cannot ever be transferred to another PC once installed.) But even for the free RT/WP versions, the interface actually isn't that well designed compared to other spreadsheets for mobile devices. In my experience, quickoffice has perhaps the best touch NUI for this. Best of all, it costs nothing.

TL;DR, I don't think MS Office, or even LibreOffice or any other office suite, is really needed anymore. I only have it installed because some of my classes at school require me to, but I noticed that when I'm not doing these assignments, I have only used it to create my resume.

Re:Perfect

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't we go back to text editors and LaTeX to produce the final document?

Sure, go ahead.

MS Office and Apple iOS are both fading platforms facing imminent obsolescence anyway. Why not add another set of barely relevant tools to the list?

Re:Perfect

[exomondo]

Nobody needs office suites anymore.

What do you mean "anymore"? What did they used to need them for that they suddenly don't now? What changed?

Re:Perfect

[Grizzley9]

TL;DR, I don't think MS Office, or even LibreOffice or any other office suite, is really needed anymore. I only have it installed because some of my classes at school require me to, but I noticed that when I'm not doing these assignments, I have only used it to create my resume.

You had a good point up until you only considered student assignment usage.

Re: Perfect

[VTBlue]

Define "imminent" please.

Re: Perfect

[VTBlue]

Regarding your Pareto principle, the actual statistic is 90% of users only use 10% of the feature on aggregate. The problem is that every individual in the 90% uses a different 10%. Microsoft telemetry backs this up, and this is why they don't split the product up even further. Consider Excel. A researcher uses a very different subset of the app compared to an engineer or financial analyst. There isn't a year that goes by where I don't see a non-trivial usage model for Excel. As for PowerPoint and Word, the same idea applies but is less apparent until you factor in line-of-business integration of the docs and app on the server side, natively or via add-ons.

While there is definitely a consumer case to argue that Office is overkill for home use, as long as business find value in using the advanced features of Office, people will continue to use Office at home, whether or not they personally utilize said advanced features.

*former MSFT employee*

Re:Perfect

[lgw]

Excel isn't going away any time soon, and PowerPoint isn't going away fast enough! Word rose and fell with desktop publishing, of course, but is actually a decent reader for text eBooks - at least it looks vastly better than Kindle.

Re:Perfect

[barjam]

Office is essential to your typical office worker. I use word/excel daily and powerpoint at least once a month. Being able to read those documents on a phone/tablet is interested... not sure I care about being able to edit them though.

Re:Perfect

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm using libreOffice calc for my income taxes (just as I've done for the past 5 years). Works like a charm. I'm happy, the government is happy. I get my return back early, I haven't had to pay tax, and I've got records. Some of the other stuff I haven't used/needed, but if I was doing anything else I would use LibreOffice. Its free, works really well, and I don't need/want anything I have to pay for.

Re:Perfect

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it really even needed for that though?

Yes. MS Office still rules the business world. business users want mobility and they also want capability to work with business documents even in a limited fashion .Not every edit is major. Sometimes they want to make only simple updates. Further, as usual, MS is late to the table. Nearly every major ERP system has a mobility app already and you certainly wouldn't want to be an order entry clerk using a tablet. A salesperson would though.

Re:Perfect

[Nexzus]

I couldn't really live without Outlook. It pretty much manages my life.

Re:Perfect

[Anonymous Coward]

MS Office suffers a bit from the reverse of the Pareto Principle: 80% of its users only use 20% of its features.

That is the Pareto principle. And just what would the "reverse" be anyway? 80% using 80%?

Re:Perfect

[FlyHelicopters]

My wife does just that, but she uses a Droid 3 for it. It no longer is a "phone", it has been wiped and setup just for use thanks to HDMI out.

The phone itself has almost no dollar value, but it is a great device for connecting to a TV.

Re:Perfect

[FlyHelicopters]

Yes, it is needed...

When you get out of school and move on to the real world, you'll find businesses use MS Office, it is the standard and is quite useful...

Social media is nice, but that isn't where business is done...

Re:Perfect

[CadentOrange]

It's handy having your an office suite on your tablet as it allows you to make quick edits on the go. No one is expecting you to write your thesis on a tablet, but for reviewing documents, writing comments and making small changes having Office on the iPad stupidly useful.

As for Office suites in general, I don't know what it's like where you are but in the UK you're almost guaranteed that to run into MS Office files in whatever job you do. There's no avoiding it even as a techie as your specifications and such are almost certainly written in Word.

Re:Perfect

[vux984]

I only have it installed because some of my classes at school require me to, but I noticed that when I'm not doing these assignments, I have only used it to create my resume.

I've never met any sort of admin person who could function without office. They need excel and word for literally everything they do all day long.

AND anyone who interacts with an admin person needs to be able to read, and often write to those files.

An inventory manager might send someone an excel sheet of inventory that is missing and needs to be located. Or an asset list that needs to be completed. Or a table of phones that were stolen.

An accountant uses Excel in all kinds of ways, and those documents need to be disseminated to management.

What do you think your companies policy manuals were written in? The ISO quality manual? Material Safety Data Sheets? The log sheet to record when the bathrooms were cleaned? Device Master Records? Customs declarations paperwork? Grant applications? Investment Prospectus? Meeting minutes? New Employee Orientation packages? Legal Contracts? Stock Option Grants? SEC Filings? Press Releases? Performance Reviews?

How many of us need to fill out an excel or word document to submit a timesheet, prepare a customer a quote, submit an expense report, request vacation time, fill out an order, prepare a project budget, estimate a job?

I have only used it to create my resume.

Yeah, not everybody is you.

Re:Perfect

[Anonymous Coward]

Word: How often do you write formal letters anymore ... fancy formatting,...

If you prepare non-trivial documents for human reading, a word processor is useful, and Word is a great word processor. If the most demanding communication you do is forum posts, then no, you probably don't need one. Or understand why other people do.

PowerPoint...kind of annoying to pull up your images and other whatnots and then scale and position them properly using just your fingers...

You've clearly never used an iPad, so why are you writing this crap? "Pulling up your images and other whatnots and then scale and position them properly using just your fingers" is exactly what the iPad excels at. Not pixel-by-pixel editing, but positioning and cropping and rotating for a presentation is a perfect use case.

Excel...80% of its users only use 20% of its features...

So...? The program exists and people know how to use the 20% they need.

Re:Perfect

[MachineShedFred]

Damn, I wish I could sell a fading platform that is breaking sales records.

Just because you wish it so (for some reason) does not make it so. Remember, competition is a good thing for us - the best thing that can happen is for Apple and Google to have a healthy competitor in Google and Apple.

Re: Perfect

[TheGrimmReaper]

"airplane mode"? Hey, I want to be able to FIND my phone, not lose it in the ocean :)

Re:Perfect

[cyber-vandal]

What would you replace Word with in, for example, a law firm?

Re:Perfect

[Archangel Michael]

Student to Professor: "Here is a link to my GoogleDoc version, which shows complete revision history. And I didn't kill any trees creating this document, making it very green. You can't be bothered clicking a link? Okay, let me print it out in dead tree version ...."

There is no need for "Microsoft Word Formatted File", except people who don't want to learn new things. Funny, but that is exactly how I view many teachers (not wanting to learn new things).

Re:Perfect

[Archangel Michael]

The "standard" is an anachronism of "Old School". It is not really useful, it is actually a hindrance. It is only "helpful" in the sense that a rotary phone is "helpful", because it uses "pulse dialing", something I used to be able to do with my finger and the "off the hook" button (giving away my age). It is a neat trick, that you can't do on today's push button phones, at all. But I can't tell you the last time i needed to use that trick because the Rotor on my phone broke.

Give me collaboration via Google Docs verses one person working on a Office Doc any day.

Re: Perfect

[Anonymous Coward]

Woke up this morning thinking about if I was on the plane in the Hudson and how I'd have to swim with one hand while the other kept my phone above the water.

Had to comment simply because yours was so timely :)

Re:Perfect

[Seraphim_72]

I know - what morons. I mean, if they can't handle my MacWrite file on floppy screw 'em, luddites. And my art history prof thinks LATEX is a kind of paint lololll!!!one!!111 I mean, it *says* WordPERFECT right in the name! Get with it!!! Besides if you just run the perl script it outputs in mostly correct XML and what could be easier to understand? They just don't like that I am smarter than they are!

In other words...No one should have to have a CompSci degree and know the history of computing to read your drivel about Kant, and if you don't think this kind of shit happens all the frickin time in a colligiate setting you have never worked in one.

Re:Perfect

[Anonymous Coward]

When I worked at VMware...

Where'd you work?

There are no "freak" in "fries"!

Re: Perfect

[Anonymous Coward]

Define "imminent" please.

Encyclopedia Derp: Imminent (adj): "Already Occurred"

Re:Perfect

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm using libreOffice calc for my income taxes (just as I've done for the past 5 years).

Enjoy your state at Riker's Island.

Re:Perfect

[Tsiangkun]

I went 12 years without needing an office suite. When looking for a new job, it was the first thing I used to update the resume in .doc format, .rtf, and .txt.

Re:Perfect

[FlyHelicopters]

If you think Google Docs cuts it, then you haven't really seen the features of Office used.

Google Docs is a nice free toy, but it is FAR away from approaching Office.

I fully agree that 90% of users do not need more than 10% of the features in MS Office. The thing is, those 90% of users don't need the same 10% of the features.

It only takes a single needed missing feature to make anything else a nonstarter, that is why MS Works is finally gone, the fact is, MS Office with "everything" is what works best, even if you never use everything.

I currently use Office 2010, I'll skip 2013 and wait for 2017, simply because the current one is fine and the learning curve makes skipping each generation worthwhile. The cost isn't even an issue, Office Home and Student is a hundred bucks, Office 365 is $70 a year if you really want everything and to install multiple times.

Linux hasn't replaced Windows, and it is free. There is far more to the cost of software than just what you pay for it. :)

Re: Perfect

[BasilBrush]

Regarding your Pareto principle, the actual statistic is 90% of users only use 10% of the feature on aggregate. The problem is that every individual in the 90% uses a different 10%. Microsoft telemetry backs this up

I don't believe it for a minute. In my experience users of a application such as Word tend to take on new features in a pretty similar progression.

For sure I know Microsoft have CLAIMED everyone needs a different 20% (or 10%). But I think that's just marketing for the overblown apps they have, set against the simpler rivals.

Re:Perfect

[BasilBrush]

I'm afraid you're just demonstrating that you're a student with no real business experience.

Re: Perfect

[Anonymous Coward]

The pareto principle is also known as the 80–20 rule. It's not the 90-10 rule.

Re:Perfect

[Archangel Michael]

Google Docs does 90 % of what anyone does and stuff Office CANNOT do, that when people see it, they will want it. Namely Multiple and simultaneous editing of documents. Sharepoint is not easy or cheap, and therefore doesn't count. Google Docs also forces users to do their own security, rather than have IT do it for them. Sharing a doc with only two people, easy in GDOCS, impossible with Office.

Collaboration is the new "hot" thing for organizations. And for the people that "need" office, well then they can buy it.

Re:Perfect

[Archangel Michael]

Yeah, I'm a student (25 year career as a Computer/Networking Professional) with no real business experience (other than running my own business). Other than that, you're 100% right.

Re: Perfect

[VTBlue]

i know this...i'm telling you the approximate real statistic from Microsoft Telemetry circa 2008.

Re:Perfect

[Archangel Michael]

GoogleDocs converts to PDF just fine. As does your LATEX file. PDF is "portable" while MSWORD, MacWrite, even LibreOffice are not. However MSWORD and LibreOffice both can save as PDF.

Don't be a douche

Re:Perfect

[david_thornley]

Actually, a tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard can be a surprisingly good platform for writing. That said....

Your analysis of MS Word is rather flawed. For most things people use MS Word for, they can use something simpler, like Pages on my iPhone. This has pretty much always been true, but as long as everybody could get MS Office (which ran on Windows and Mac from the start), and may have learned to use it in a class, there wasn't much reason to use anything else.

Then these tablets came along, with Bluetooth keyboards, and people had good enough equipment to do light word processing (the only type most people need), and they couldn't get MS Word. They used something else, and that's something Microsoft really should have tried to pre-empt by making MS Office available on iOS and Android.

It's sort of like herd immunity against non-MS office software: as long as pretty much everybody is immune (uses MS Office) pretty much everybody stays immune (uses MS Office), and the people like me don't really count, just like a measles infection that doesn't infect anybody else. Now, people start to be not vaccinated because their parents are stupid (can't get MS Office on this new thing they use all the time), and they start using measles and whooping cough (they catch Pages and whatever is on Android), and the non-MS stuff spreads and can become endemic, cutting MS's profits.

Re: Perfect

[VTBlue]

Microsoft doesn't really have time to fudge millions of telemetry numbers. You may argue that telemetry data is biased or skewed towards larger organizations if you want, but the reality is Office is used because large influential organizations use it and Microsoft introduces the features that they want. Everyone doesn't "need" a different 10%, they learn to use or choose to use a different 10%, its an empirical fact. Most people don't learn Office feature sets formally, but rather in organically. Because the the product allows to accomplish similar things in a variety of ways, some way efficient and some not, people just stick with the path they know. This is especially clear in my case when I try to leverage pivot tables in Google Spreadsheet vs. Excel 2010/2013. Google Spreadsheet allows me to do most of the basic and some of the intermediate data processing I need to build models, but in order to do 100% of the job, I'd have to jump through many more hoops to get Google Spreadsheet to do what I need it to do. Anyone who uses Google Docs and says they haven't had to change their authoring workflow is not being 100% genious. In fact Google's whole strategy has been to tell people that the features its product lacks isn't really that important to begin with, and they're right for a subset of the general user population. This strategy also also allow Google to come closer to feature parity...thought it'll never really happen.

The point is that if your organization invests in Microsoft Office across the enterprise and chooses not to leverage more advanced productivity/collaboration features, you're pretty much paying for compatibility and throwing a lot of money down the drain. Such organizations may find it better to either fire their IT staff or CIO, OR switch to Google or OpenOffice. Organizations with lower quality information workers may find the switch away from Office just fine, but I would argue that the goal should be to provide tools that raise productivity capabilities of the workers. And while I don't discount your experience, I have dealt with massive customer bases that have made that switch only to come back to MS Office stack. Office365 has come such a long way that today its almost a no-brainer compared to Google Apps.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensen...

Re:Perfect

[david_thornley]

The question might be what you replace WordPerfect with. From what I hear, its main use is legal stuff.

Re:Perfect

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a computational biologist. I use it everyday. Even though I work most of the time in Linux. We write reports, make presentations and crunch Excel tables (I must say I like Excel, even though I sometimes use R). And my biologist and chemist colleagues use MS Office practically all of their desk time. So yeah, your world is not so big.

Re: Perfect

[BasilBrush]

but the reality is Office is used because large influential organizations use it and Microsoft introduces the features that they want.

That's not really true. Taking Word as an example, MS Word for DOS was a minority product, with Word Perfect being the market leader. Through a combination of WP not believing in Windows, and Microsoft having an advantage development wise - they had unique access to APIs and access to Winows source code - Word for Windows became the first fully featured word processor for Windows, and got most of the market share at that time. But they held that position by using document format lock-in. Businesses bought Word for Windows because that was the format they received documents in. And because of opaque and undocumented file formats and idiosyncratic formatting, no other products could import them flawlessly.

That's the reason for Word for Windows success. Format lock-in, not the features.

Everyone doesn't "need" a different 10%, they learn to use or choose to use a different 10%, its an empirical fact.

It's not an empirical fact, it's a claim. And one needs to differentiate between actual features, and simply different UI ways of activating the feature. For sure, some people will access a feature with a hot key, others with the menu, others with the ribbon, others with a right click, and a whole host of other alternative means for achieving the same action. But that's not "needing a different 10%". That's the same 10% via different means.

I accept that Excel has it's place through merit. But not Word. And Powerpoint, though no one seems to have made much effort to compete with it on Windows, it's outclassed by Keynote on the Mac.

Nevertheless as an Office package, the reason virtually every business uses it it the network effect, enabled by the impossibility of replicating every formatting quirk in competing software.

Re:Perfect

[BasilBrush]

Running your own business doesn't give you that much insight into how corporates work. SOHO is a different fish altogether.

Re:Perfect

[cyber-vandal]

No the question is what would you replace Word with in a law firm, given that "Nobody needs office suites anymore"? Do you have an answer to that question?

Re:Perfect

[hobarrera]

I've heard this rumor a lot, but, at 26, having worked for ~8years in the IT industry, I've only needed LO less than a dozen of times to merely OPEN some file someone sent me.

Re:Perfect

[hobarrera]

An inventory manager might send someone an excel sheet of inventory that is missing and needs to be located. Or an asset list that needs to be completed.

Serious companies (even small ones) have some web-based (or sometimes desktop) system with an actual database for this stuff. We stopped keeping company inventory and such as floating files years ago.

An accountant uses Excel in all kinds of ways, and those documents need to be disseminated to management.

Accuontants use accounting software. Even more so in corporate environments.

What do you think your companies policy manuals were written in? The ISO quality manual? Material Safety Data Sheets? The log sheet to record when the bathrooms were cleaned? Device Master Records? Customs declarations paperwork? Grant applications? Investment Prospectus? Meeting minutes? New Employee Orientation packages? Legal Contracts? Stock Option Grants? SEC Filings? Press Releases? Performance Reviews?

How many of us need to fill out an excel or word document to submit a timesheet, prepare a customer a quote, submit an expense report, request vacation time, fill out an order, prepare a project budget, estimate a job?

I have only used it to create my resume.

Yeah, not everybody is you.

Once every few years, maybe? That's far from being standard. Using a browser is way more standard (I've used one for most of the points you mention above).

Re:Perfect

[vux984]

Serious companies (even small ones) have some web-based (or sometimes desktop) system with an actual database for this stuff. We stopped keeping company inventory and such as floating files years ago.

Yeah, and pretty much every one of these I've ever seen in actual use has employees using excel in tandem with it.

The 'system' is the master copy, but Excel is used to gather, organize, and massage the data before it goes in. And reports get exported to excel to be massaged and charted and so forth.

Accountants use accounting software. Even more so in corporate environments.

Same situation as inventory. Excel is frequently used to gather, massage, etc data before it gets entered.

Excel is used to combine and manipulate reports exports. Compare scenarios, do ad hoc projections. Accounting systems are great for accounting but I've never seen an accounting system that was flexible enough to replace excel for planning and reporting.

Once every few years, maybe? That's far from being standard.

I don't know you, or what you do. I don't personally launch excel all that often either at my job. Although I was plotting some data from miscallenous sources in miscellaneous foramts in it a lot last month, before we settled on things, and now we've mostly switched to R.

But that aside, I've never run into a business yet, that didn't have its admin people heavily using office alongside the accounting and CRM and other systems.

Using a browser is way more standard (I've used one for most of the points you mention above).

Last week our marketing guy hosted a webex seminar; the 3rd party company that actually hosted it sent us the list of attendees (email, name, phone, etc) in excel, along with whether they'd opted into receive the company newsletter.

So, that's the information flow from the 3rd party company. An XLS spreadsheet. From there...

We filtered in Excel, on those who'd opted in to the newsletter and imported that to the 3rd party web based system we use to manage mail outs.

We forwarded a copy of the whole thing to the sales team, who imported the new people as contacts. (And they matched it against an export from the CRM system in Excel to identify which needed to be added and which were already in the system).

The CEO wanted to see the list of attendees, and asked for a copy of the excel sheet to review.

We might do a physical mailout followup, and if so will send an excel sheet to the printers to handle the mail merge and envelope stuffing...

I don't know what amazing company you work for where all this information flow never hits an Office Suite, but this is how its done in the real world everywhere I've ever been.

Re:Perfect

[FlyHelicopters]

Working in IT is actually the worst example...

Try management, marketing, sales, customer support, etc...

Those depts need MS Office far more than IT does...

Well, that took a while

[djhaskin987]

It's because Steve Ballmer refused to acknowledge iOS's existence. Now that a new guy is in charge, things are happening again.

Re:Well, that took a while

[exomondo]

It's because Steve Ballmer refused to acknowledge iOS's existence. Now that a new guy is in charge, things are happening again.

Yeah I'm sure they whipped up the whole office suite for iOS in the last few weeks since Ballmer left.

This would certainly enable Office devotees to invest in iPads (or do more with existing iPads) but I don't see it converting many existing Google Docs users or those who are already ensconced in the iWork suite...though that's probably not the point.

Re:Well, that took a while

[rasmusbr]

Microsoft office for iPhone was released last summer while Ballmer was still CEO and the iPad app is much more advanced, so I would guess they probably started working on that around the same time they started on the simpler iPhone app.

Re:Well, that took a while

[MightyMartian]

It's a pretty seismic shift in Microsoft's direction. The unholy trinity of Windows-Office-Backoffice has been the guiding paradigm of Microsoft's strategy for two decades. Now it's pulling Windows out of the loop and allowing Office-Back Office to stand semi-independent (yes, I know, Exchange and Sharepoint still run on the Windows operating system). It looks like the split between operating system and software is happening a decade later than it might have if the DOJ had stuck to its guns.

Re:Well, that took a while

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

PowerPiss! It's better, on an Apple?

I push rectangles on slides, all day long...

Re:Well, that took a while

[Anonymous Coward]

PowerPiss? really? thats the best lame-ass crap you could come up with? you know if youre that angry maybe you should just get one of those stress balls, if microsoft is able to have you frothing at the mouth like that then perhaps you need to get off the internet for a while and find some real meaning, get a hobby.

Being on a touch device they should have called it PowerPoke!

Re:Well, that took a while

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I do like how Microsoft has gotten all lovey dovey with Apple now that Android has basically pulled the platform war out from underneath both companies.

I knew that Apple would turn into Microsoft if they had the chance back when slashdot used to praise Apple for being "open" with OS 10 (Yep, slashdot used to love apple until about 2006ish.)

Of course, Android isn't perfect either, but I like how it gives you options that the competition would never EVER consider allowing you to have.

Re:Well, that took a while

[Kalriath]

That's because the New Wave is Cloud. A chance to charge you monthly for what you used to just buy outright.

Re:Well, that took a while

[Anonymous Coward]

It's better, on an Apple?

Not really, it'd be better on a platform most people actually use.

Given that there's now more Android devices than Windows or Apple machines put together, you have to ask yourself why MS isn't making Office available for the dominant platform. They obviously have a good reason, but it doesn't appear to involve sales of the Office suite. Leveraging their lockin desktop office document formats to disadvantage their key competitor maybe?

Fortunately, Open Office is already available on Android, and has better compatibility than MS office with their own formats.

https://play.google.com/store/...

Re:Well, that took a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Office Mobile is on Android. It isnt supported on Android tablets yet but most Android devices (by a large margin) are phones rather than tablets anyway.

Re:Well, that took a while

[blahbooboo]

All while google harvests tons of information about android users....

Re:Well, that took a while

[Anonymous Coward]

(Yep, slashdot used to love apple until about 2006ish)

Well, everybody around here spoke wll of those goddamned iPods. Something about a wheel being clever? I didn't know or care. Fuck Apple.

But computer and OS wise, Slashdot has been overall a fruit-free zone since forever. Thank goodness.

Re:Well, that took a while

[Anonymous Coward]

It isnt supported on Android tablets

It's not the same, have you even tried the phone version? Using it is an exercise in frustration.

You'd have to be a very dedicated masochist to even consider installing it on a tablet.

Re:Well, that took a while

[Gadget_Guy]

It's a pretty seismic shift in Microsoft's direction. The unholy trinity of Windows-Office-Backoffice has been the guiding paradigm of Microsoft's strategy for two decades.

The only flaw in your premise is that we are now just four months away from the 25th birthday of *Microsoft Office for Mac*. This predates the Windows version by more than a year. Also, Word was first made for Xenix (Microsoft's brand of Unix) under the name *Multi-Tool Word* (along with an MS-DOS version).

There has never been a time when Office was only available for Windows. And this latest move to iOS does not mean that "Windows is out of the loop". There is still (and always will be) the Windows desktop version of Office, and it does have more features than the mobile version.

Re:Well, that took a while

[Locutus]

that's why we are not hearing about and Android version. How does that saying go, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."? To Microsoft, Apple is the lesser of two evils and by making these PR statements the new CEO can look like he's now a new player while Bill Gates is behind him pulling his strings to do everything they can to try and save Windows. I doubt we'll see an Android version before the Microsoft Surface version if at all.

LoB

Re:Well, that took a while

[MachineShedFred]

In order for Microsoft to keep making money on Office, they need to keep selling Office. If they sell watered-down versions for iOS, they accomplish two things:

1. Extend the vendor lock-in of people creating documents and content in Office on full-client desktops and laptops, so they continue on the upgrade treadmill
2. An iOS device sale is better in Microsoft's eyes than an Android device sale, because it's less traffic to Google.

Re:Well, that took a while

[MachineShedFred]

Plus, every accountant loves turning what used to be capital expense (one time software purchase) into operational expense (recurring monthly subscription)!

I can't imagine why these schemes aren't being adopted on a massive scale!

Re:Well, that took a while

[Big Hairy Ian]

Yes one wonders if this new office suite includes outlook? If so does it still insist in wrapping all attachments in MS Mailnotes?

Re:Well, that took a while

[Tsiangkun]

Come out of your hole, apple laptops are dominating in my area. Python, Go, d3, ... all the groups I frequent are apparently not readers of /., or some /. readers do not get out into the real world much.

Re:Well, that took a while

[BasilBrush]

Your doubts don't count for much given that Microsoft has also released MS Office for Android already. Check out the tabs for the platforms supported.

http://office.microsoft.com/en...

Re:Well, that took a while

[Locutus]

From what I could find that would only be for Android phones so how useful is that. Not much IMO.

Here's something interesting:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/03/29/why-did-microsoft-port-office-to-apples-ios-ipad-before-android
why did microsoft port office to apples ios ipad before android

LoB

Re:Well, that took a while

[BasilBrush]

I've been told many times here that Android doesn't need separate versions for phones and tablets, because of autosizing features. Of course I never believed it, and it looks like you don't either.

So, that explains why there's so much fuss being made of the iPad version, and none about the Android version. I guess the Android one is little more than a phone viewer.

And the article you link to explains handily why Microsoft would choose to develop for iPad before Android tablets. Thanks.

Jesus Tapdancing Christ

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been better than twenty years of this kind of shit from them. Why do people continue to let them get away with it?

Re:Jesus Tapdancing Christ

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about?

"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[SuperKendall]

Doesn't seem that way:

Make no mistake about it: These three apps are feature-rich, powerful tools for creating and editing Office documents. They look and act like their Office 2013 counterparts on Windows. And although these iPad apps obviously can't replicate every feature of the full desktop programs, they deliver an impressive subset of those features. Anyone who was expecting Office Lite or a rehash of the underwhelming Office for iPhone will be pleasantly surprised.

(Thanks to DaringFireball for the link and summary).

I will download them for sure, but it really puts me off having to use a subscription to use them for editing.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

I will download them for sure, but it really puts me off having to use a subscription to use them for editing.

I agree, I would have thought "free for non-commercial use" would have worked well enough. Corporates are the ones driving Office revenue anyway, end users are much more likely to go with iWork or Google Docs than paying for Office.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[DaHat]

I would have thought "free for non-commercial use" would have worked well enough

So you want to rely on a DRM system which decides if you are using it for commercial purposes? Or just the honesty of users?

Neither sound like a good options when dealing with a product that is known for making good sums of money.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

I would have thought "free for non-commercial use" would have worked well enough

So you want to rely on a DRM system which decides if you are using it for commercial purposes? Or just the honesty of users?

Neither sound like a good options when dealing with a product that is known for making good sums of money.

It's already been done for years, this isn't a foreign concept, have you not seen Office Home and Student for example? Not sure why you don't think it's a good option given it's been used for so long and continues to be used today.

Forgot to mention even a flat fee for a perpetual non-commercial Home & Student license would probably work.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Student versions require an E-mail address from a recognized college or university to be activated. So they really don't just take your word for it, they actually check something.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

Wrong, I specifically said Home and Student, which does not have the requirement you stipulate.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already been done for years, this isn't a foreign concept, have you not seen Office Home and Student for example? Not sure why you don't think it's a good option given it's been used for so long and continues to be used today.

Forgot to mention even a flat fee for a perpetual non-commercial Home & Student license would probably work."

There is already Home and Student pricing for Office 365.

It's not perpetual, but there's even a cheap university subscription that lasts 4 years.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[cbhacking]

It's also not free, for non-commercial use or otherwise. It's cheaper than the other paid editions, especially since it allows installation on multiple machines with a single license, but it does still cost money.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

"It's already been done for years, this isn't a foreign concept, have you not seen Office Home and Student for example?"

Its not relying on honesty or integrity or even DRM to prevent commercial use its relying on "missing a key application" nearly all business users require.

"Office Home and Student" lacks Outlook.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

And the iOS version doesn't have Outlook either, so the Home and Student way would work equally well there.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

It's also not free, for non-commercial use or otherwise. It's cheaper than the other paid editions, especially since it allows installation on multiple machines with a single license, but it does still cost money.

It doesn't have to be free, I even followed that up with even a flat fee for a perpetual non-commercial Home & Student license would probably work.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

ios doesn't need outlook, it's already got contact, calendar, and email sync to exchange.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

Which is precisely why I said the Home and Student type of licensing is a perfect match.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

Which is precisely why you DONT get it.

The reason home and student licensing works on the desktop is that businesses will be motivated to buy the more expensive corporate version to get outlook.

That WONT work on a platform that effectively COMES WITH OUTLOOK.

What differentiates the home and student version from the corporate version on an ios device? Nothing.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

If you need Outlook then the iOS mail client won't suffice for you anyway. What precisely do you think businesses need Outlook for?

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

If you need Outlook then the iOS mail client won't suffice for you anyway.

Why not? Its decent access to Exchange from a smartphone.

What precisely do you think businesses need Outlook for?

What precisely do -you- think businesses need Outlook for?

At minimum: Calendar, Contacts, Email - all synchronized to the server and desktop and phone. Ability to see others calendars or availability, ability to schedule meetings.

Sure there's a few alternatives out there; that all try to be exchange without exchange. Google Apps for enterprises for example, which is decent, but its not as good.

Again... what precisely do -you- think businesses need outlook for?

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

Why not? Its decent access to Exchange from a smartphone.

If decent access to Exchange is what you need then you don't need Outlook either.

What precisely do -you- think businesses need Outlook for?

I just asked you that question.

At minimum: Calendar, Contacts, Email - all synchronized to the server and desktop and phone.

Outlook is just a client (like the many other mail clients) and it doesn't synchronize your email to your phone, that has nothing to do with Outlook nor does it matter whether you use Outlook as your email client for an Exchange server, you can use any email client that supports Exchange.

Again... what precisely do -you- think businesses need outlook for?

Calendars, Email and Contacts. None of which are exclusive to Outlook.

But this is all irrelevant anyway because Outlook is not tied to Office, you can purchase Outlook individually at a fraction of the cost of Office. If you have ignorantly believed whatever the MS sales people tell you then you can still have Outlook and use whatever office suite you want. I can't see why you're so desperate to portray Outlook as some irreplaceable and unmatched product that is essential to businesses.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

If decent access to Exchange is what you need then you don't need Outlook either.

Yeah, actually you do. The other desktop clients with exchange support range from bearable to broken.

Outlook is just a client (like the many other mail clients)

No, it not like the many other mail clients.

that has nothing to do with Outlook nor does it matter whether you use Outlook as your email client for an Exchange server

Now you are arguing my point for me. The REASON you don't need outlook on a phone is that the phone already has a good exchange client. The desktop options other than outlook are not great.

But this is all irrelevant anyway because Outlook is not tied to Office, you can purchase Outlook individually at a fraction of the cost of Office.

But "Outlook" + "Outlook Home and Student" is in the same ball park as Office Standard VLA; with a fraction the licensing grief. So businesses that want office will pay the delta for outlook.

Calendars, Email and Contacts. None of which are exclusive to Outlook.

Like what else are you credibly going to replace outlook with on the desktop? Apple Mail? Kmail? Thunderbird with ExQuilla? All substantially inferior in a lot of ways; assuming you can get them to work at all in non-bog-vanilla deployments (e.g. via https proxy's, with certficate authentication, etc.

I can't see why you're so desperate to portray Outlook as some irreplaceable and unmatched product that is essential to businesses.

I don't need to portray as irreplaceable and unmatched. Its users do that.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

The other desktop clients with exchange support range from bearable to broken.

In what ways exactly?

But "Outlook" + "Outlook Home and Student" is in the same ball park as Office Standard VLA; with a fraction the licensing grief. So businesses that want office will pay the delta for outlook.

Except when they don't need Outlook, but you insist that all businesses require Outlook which is absolute rubbish.

Like what else are you credibly going to replace outlook with on the desktop? Apple Mail? Kmail? Thunderbird with ExQuilla?

So what you're telling me is you actually believe there is no desktop mail client other than Outlook that supports Calendars, Email and Contacts properly but the mobile clients do.

I don't need to portray as irreplaceable and unmatched. Its users do that.

Actually it's exactly what you are doing.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

So what you're telling me is you actually believe there is no desktop mail client other than Outlook that supports Calendars, Email and Contacts properly but the mobile clients do.

When I asked you point blank just fucking NAME ONE, all you could do was reflect the question back at me.

If there are so many great desktop options that can replace outlook on exchange, name one.

In what ways exactly?

First you name one, then I'll tell you exactly what ways.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

Thunderbird, eM, Zimbra, Postbox, Apple Mail or you know, your entirely capable email client on your Android phone or tablet, your iPhone or your iPad. You can even get Android tablets for less than the cost of standalone Outlook!

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

Thunderbird - thunderbird doesn't directly support calenders or exchange. You can get plugins for each, its a patchwork mess and there are several issues. Thunderbird itself is great... I even use it myself, but its not a suitable exchange client.

eM ... never heard of it. From wikipedia: . Microsoft Exchange server is partially supported. Yeah. Lets do that.

  Zimbra ... doesn't even have a desktop client. Its webmail that backends onto Zimbra's server. How is that a solution at all? Are you just naming random email products now?

Apple Mail only runs on apple, and is HIGHLY limited as an exchange client -- you can't even copy messages between two accounts/mailboxes with it. Been there, done that.

Postbox? No advertised exchange support at all.

or you know, your entirely capable email client on your Android phone or tablet, your iPhone or your iPad

None of which will run on a desktop and so are completely beside the point.

You can even get Android tablets for less than the cost of standalone Outlook!

I can get coffee makers for less too...or mittens. They also aren't solutions.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

You can use POP3, IMAP, and SMTP protocols to access your exchange server from any of those email clients, but the reality is you don't need exchange and outlook, just look here, though I'm sure you will come back and continue pretending that those millions of companies need Outlook and aren't managing without it. You can argue that "oh there's no full support for exchange blah blah blah" all you want but the fact is millions of people and companies get by just fine without it and you do not need it for email, contacts and calendars.

Zimbra ... doesn't even have a desktop client.

Yeah totally doesn't have one.

None of which will run on a desktop and so are completely beside the point.

Why do they have to run on a desktop? The mobile clients are perfectly usable and much more useful given that you aren't tied to your desk.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

You can use POP3, IMAP, and SMTP protocols to access your exchange server from any of those email clients,

Not necessarily you can't. I work with multiple clients. They don't even have POP3, IMAP enabled, and SMTP is used only to exchange mail with the outside world, not for mail submission from the domain clients and is firewalled. Mail access is via Exchange's https proxy with client certificates.

And how is thunderbird for active directory support? Group policy?

but the reality is you don't need exchange and outlook, just look here

As I said, I have multiple clients. One of them uses google appls for enterprises actually. And its not bad, but its a LOT more limited than exchange is, and I say that as someone who works with it. (I mentioned I used thunderbird in my previous message, guess what, its with google apps for enterprises.) Its suitable for the clients that are using it - hell I migrated them myself, but I wouldn't even think of recommending it to some of my other clients.

As another touch of irony to that story, they use outlook with google apps sync for outlook after trying a variety of other solutions. (And google really dragged its feet supporting CTR Office 2013 with it too, which was a major PITA for me.)

though I'm sure you will come back and continue pretending that those millions of companies need Outlook and aren't managing without it.

The millions of companies that aren't using it don't need it. Some would benefit from it though, others not. And of the many that ARE using it as more than just a dumb imap client, yes, its pretty indispensable.

[Zimbra] Yeah totally doesn't have one.

"Zimbra Desktop is a full-featured free desktop email client which is still supported in version 7, but has reached End of Life in version 7.2.2 and will be replaced with an HTML5 offline mode in version 9."

You were saying? yeah, lets totally go with a desktop product that is EOL before we've even started to migrate to it. Good plan!

Why do they have to run on a desktop?

Oh i dunno... i like to send and receive email from my computer, when I'm sitting at my computer. It makes it easier to copy and paste things from other documents I'm working on, add attachments, etc. Why on earth would I not want a desktop client.

The mobile clients are perfectly usable and much more useful given that you aren't tied to your desk.

That's why we use them too, and want them in sync. What would we care about sync if we only had one device? And they are only -more- useful when you aren't at your desk.

Beleive it or not some of us do real work, on computers, at desks. And, no, an ipad isn't going to cut it.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

I was going to respond to the other points but then I read this and realized the rest is redundant anyway:

Beleive it or not some of us do real work, on computers, at desks. And, no, an ipad isn't going to cut it.

If an iPad isn't going to cut it then what the hell are you even arguing about?! the whole point was about a Home and Student standalone license for iPad so if an iPad isn't going to cut it for the businesses that have the dependencies you are talking about then Office for iPad is going to be of no interest to them anyway.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

If an iPad isn't going to cut it then what the hell are you even arguing about?!

It seems you forgot.

Most recently we were arguing about why businesses needed outlook on the desktop, and this in turn is why they are willing to buy business licenses of Microsoft office instead of just buying the cheaper home and student version.

The whole point was about a Home and Student standalone license for iPad so if an iPad isn't going to cut it for the businesses that have the dependencies you are talking about then Office for iPad is going to be of no interest to them anyway.

Not quite. The whole point was that Microsoft relies on Outlook being indispensible to ensure businesses buy the more expensive version of office that includes it on the desktop.

Business uses that would be able to use office on the ipads would only need office home and student, because the ipad mobile exchange client is adequate.

The question was: how does Microsoft ensure businesses buy a commercial use license of Office for ipads?

On the desktop, they want outlook, and "Office Home and Student isn't adequate". Outlook is the carrot for business users to buy the more expensive version. That led to the tangent about why outlook is required by businesses on the desktop.

What is the carrot on mobile to ensure businesses do not buy the "Home and Student" version? That is the question.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

Most recently we were arguing about why businesses needed outlook on the desktop, and this in turn is why they are willing to buy business licenses of Microsoft office instead of just buying the cheaper home and student version.

And the reason for that was to justify the Home and Student model for the iPad version of Office, which you have said isn't going to cut it for businesses so the Home and Student concept is for licensing to non-businesses is completely valid because apparently businesses won't see value in the product anyway.

The question was: how does Microsoft ensure businesses buy a commercial use license of Office for ipads?

If you believe the iPad "isn't going to cut it" for businesses then the issue isn't licensing anyway so again your argument is irrelevant.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

And the reason for that was to justify the Home and Student model for the iPad version of Office, which you have said isn't going to cut it for businesses so the Home and Student concept is for licensing to non-businesses is completely valid because apparently businesses won't see value in the product anyway.

Don't be an idiot. We can take it as a given that there ARE plenty of business use cases for Office on an iPad. So the question, so far unanswered, remains: what will induce businesses to pay for the more expensive version of office for the ipad?

And the answer comes from the app description

  "Read documents for free. A qualifying Office 365 subscription is required to edit and create Word documents. Qualifying plans include: [...]"

Businesses are going to be tied into the business priced subscriptions of office 365 because of the limitations on the home version of office 365 -- such as the very low limit on the number of users within a domain. (5)

If you believe the iPad "isn't going to cut it" for businesses then the issue isn't licensing anyway so again your argument is irrelevant

But we both know I never said anything like that.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

We can take it as a given that there ARE plenty of business use cases for Office on an iPad.

And if so they will use their Office 365 subscriptions with it, not purchase thousands of standalone Home and Student licenses in addition to that.

Businesses are going to be tied into the business priced subscriptions of office 365 because of the limitations on the home version of office 365 -- such as the very low limit on the number of users within a domain.

Hence a standalone Home and Student license for the iPad version would only be an additional unnecessary cost to a business who already has a 365 subscription and can use it for free with that, you obviously don't even know what you're trying to argue anymore.

But we both know I never said anything like that.

You can pretend all you like, but you did say exactly that, given you have a serious problem with memory and reading comprehension I will point you at where you said exactly that thing:
Beleive it or not some of us do real work, on computers, at desks. And, no, an ipad isn't going to cut it.

If an iPad isn't going to cut it then businesses will have paid for full versions of Office anyway negating the need to purchase further Home and Student licenses of iPad versions of the software and for those people who do not need the full versions of Office (those who aren't businesses for which an iPad will cut it) they can purchase that version.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

Hence a standalone Home and Student license for the iPad version would only be an additional unnecessary cost to a business who already has a 365 subscription and can use it for free with that, you obviously don't even know what you're trying to argue anymore.

Actually no. Because there is NO such thing as a "standalone home and student license for the ipad". The software is 'free', but is a viewer only unless its tied to office 365. To "create and edit" files you need an office 365 subscription of some sort.

You can pretend all you like, but you did say exactly that, given you have a serious problem with memory and reading comprehension I will point you at where you said exactly that thing:
Beleive it or not some of us do real work, on computers, at desks. And, no, an ipad isn't going to cut it.

Yeah, read that again, as it is you with the defective memory. When I wrote that I was talking about why OUTLOOK was indispensable to DESKTOP users.

If an iPad isn't going to cut it then businesses will have paid for full versions of Office anyway negating the need to purchase further Home and Student licenses of iPad versions of the software and for those people who do not need the full versions of Office (those who aren't businesses for which an iPad will cut it) they can purchase that version.

There is no home and student ipad version, per se, as it is tied to your office 365 subscription.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

Actually no. Because there is NO such thing as a "standalone home and student license for the ipad".

No shit, but since you're so pathetic at reading comprehension you of course missed that that is the whole point, that is exactly what I was suggesting would work well and is exactly the thing you responded to.
even a flat fee for a perpetual non-commercial Home & Student license would probably work.

There is no home and student ipad version, per se, as it is tied to your office 365 subscription.

Which is exactly why I was suggesting it, it's all in the top of this thread which you obviously didn't read.

You don't even seem to know what you're trying to argue anymore or what point you're trying to make.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

No shit, but since you're so pathetic at reading comprehension [...]

Stop projecting.

even a flat fee for a perpetual non-commercial Home & Student license would probably work.

No it wouldn't work. Because business users would pay that instead of subscribing to office 365.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

Hey you're the one with the failure, fix your problem.

No it wouldn't work. Because business users would pay that instead of subscribing to office 365.

They wouldn't need to because they can use their 365 subscription with it, which you claim they need because they need Outlook and that this cannot just be replaced with a mobile client because an ipad isn't going to cut it.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

They wouldn't need to because they can use their 365 subscription with it, which you claim they need because they need Outlook and that this cannot just be replaced with a mobile client because an ipad isn't going to cut it.

Nice string of reading comprehension fail. Lets look at it piece by piece:

They wouldn't need to because they can use their 365 subscription with it, which you claim they need

Why would they need a 365 subscription? Very few businesses have one. I've never ever claimed that a business needs office 365.

because they need Outlook

You can get outlook without office 365. You just buy office pro. That's how most small business work, and larger ones buy VLA with or without software assurance... but Office 365? Not so much, at least not yet.

this cannot just be replaced with a mobile client because an ipad isn't going to cut it.

*If* you need a desktop, then an ipad isn't going to cut it. That's almost tautological. Why are you having trouble with that?

I've already agreed multiple times that business users who can use an ipad won't need 'outlook' because the mobile mail clients do exchange well enough on the mobile devices.

So lets now, look at *those* business users. They WOULD just buy the flat fee ipad home and student if it existed, because

a) its much cheaper than office 365 for business would be
b) they already have the mail/calendar/sync functionality via the mobile client

So if they allowed for a flat fee home and student ipad edition of office, businesses would just use it.

This has actually boiled down to a very simple argument.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

If businesses that don't want Office 365 are buying multiple Home and Student licenses then it's going to be pretty obvious that it isn't being used for Home and Student purposes with records being made of it at both purchase time (where it already would be denied) and at tax time, so no, businesses would not use it.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

If businesses that don't want Office 365 are buying multiple Home and Student licenses then it's going to be pretty obvious that it isn't being used for Home and Student purposes

Like BestBuy cares when you walk out with 20 boxes of MS Office Home and Student.

with records being made of it at both purchase time (where it already would be denied)

By whom?

and at tax time

Because the government cares? (They do not.)

so no, businesses would not use it.

LMAO.

Businesses use Home editions all over the place if they can get away with it. One company I work with just bought another company, and the bought out company was Home versions of everything. (A whole chain of retail locations, each with 2-3 point of sale terminals all running Windows Home, and Office Home and Student.

(And why were they able to get away without Outlook I'm sure you'll ask... because in this particular situation, as I already said, they were POS terminals so they used some webmail. Retail sales reps - think like a store in the mall, really have very very little need for email throughout the day, don't have meetings, or appointments, nor company phones that need to be in sync, etc, etc.

For what the retail staff needed Google Apps would have probably been a better fit in terms of functionality.

Although Office Home and Student would have been cheaper. Since the staff outnumbered the computers by quite a bit (probably 2:1 easily), per-machine software bought once would have been cheaper than per-employee-per-month very quickly.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

It's funny how everytime your argument gets backed into a corner you come out with another argument that disproves your earlier one:

Businesses use Home editions all over the place if they can get away with it.

If that is indeed the case then having a Home and Student version of the iPad version of Office is no different to having an Home and Student version of the desktop version, yes the desktop version comes with Outlook but if you need that then you won't have any use for the iPad version of Office anyway since an iPad won't cut it.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

It's funny how everytime your argument gets backed into a corner you come out with another argument that disproves your earlier one:

Again. That would be your argument, not mine.

If that is indeed the case then having a Home and Student version of the iPad version of Office is no different to having an Home and Student version of the desktop version,

So it is the same?

yes the desktop version comes with Outlook

Oh, so then its NOT the same, gotcha. I'm so glad you sorted that out for us.

but if you need that [emphasis mine]

"that" being what exactly? I presume "that" is a good exchange capable outlook client.

then you won't have any use for the iPad version of Office anyway

Why not? If the word and excel meet your needs it certainly would. After all, it has a good exchange capable client.

since an iPad won't cut it.

If you need desktop versions of word and excel, then yes, having an ipad for your email sitting next to it won't cut it.

What was your point, because it seems like you failed to even make one this time.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[exomondo]

Like BestBuy cares when you walk out with 20 boxes of MS Office Home and Student.

Seriously you're an idiot, you cannot buy iOS, Windows Store or Android apps from BestBuy and if you have an enterprise account to deploy to iPads that you manage then yes it's going to be pretty clear if you're buying dozens of Home and Student versions.

So it is the same?

No, the licensing is the same, clearly the product is not the same.

Oh, so then its NOT the same

Clearly not, your failed inference above shows that and for some reason you still asked the question, why is that?

If you need desktop versions of word and excel, then yes, having an ipad for your email sitting next to it won't cut it.

You don't necessarily need Outlook either. This weird obsession you have with evangelising Microsoft products where somehow just because you need desktop versions of Word and Excel means you need Outlook really does have the mark of a paid shill. Not to mention your wilful ignorance around the suggestion that businesses would buy iPad apps from BestBuy.

Re:"Naturally aren't comparable"?

[vux984]

you cannot buy iOS, Windows Store or Android apps from BestBuy

Obviously I was referring to the boxes of Office Home and Student that you CAN walk out of best buy with. Next time I'll preface it with "Windows and Mac OS" so you can keep up.

The point stands though that neither Bestbuy for windows and mac os versions of software, nor Apple iTunes Apps Store enforces any sort of "are you a business or not" when making a purchase.

if you have an enterprise account to deploy to iPads

Then you wouldn't use it. Just as you wouldn't use your Microsoft Enterprise Volume License account to buy Windows and Mac OS versions of office home and student.

You are able to mix the app ownership models on a single device; so they'd just buy office home and student on individual accounts for each ipad that needed it.

You don't necessarily need Outlook [...]

You don't necessarily need Word and Excel either. But for the sake of THIS argument, we are assuming you DO. Likewise we're assuming the need for a competent supported exchange mail client.

pointless

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Free, unless you want to edit something, and then it's a subscription? Fuck that. I'd rather pay $15 for the whole mess and be able to edit right away. Microsoft: always finding ways to fuck up a good idea.

Re:pointless

[SuperKendall]

I (and many other people) would probably pay $15 each app - or more.

I just can't see getting an Office365 subscription to use these applications.

It's nice though they are letting you use them for free as viewers, very handy for those still using PowerPoint. The presentation abilities from an iPad sounds pretty good.

Re:pointless

[farble1670]

I'd rather pay $15 for the whole mess and be able to edit right away

really? you'd like to pay less?* that's surprising.

$60 / month for my cell plan? fuck that, i'd rather pay $150 up front. really i would.

* $6.99 / month, and of course you are going to keep it for >2 months.

Re:pointless

[DaHat]

I just can't see getting an Office365 subscription to use these applications.

While I don't think we'd get to see any #'s... I doubt that many will get an Office 365 subscription *just* to be able to use the iPad apps... instead being able to use the subscription on the iPad and a couple of desktop and laptops (up to 5 devices I think) is where the motivation to subscribe will comes in.

Re:pointless

[Barlo_Mung_42]

Most people who are going to be using this are just using it for viewing / displaying anyway. If you don't want to pay just do the creating in Open Office or some such.

Re:pointless

[Barlo_Mung_42]

I can't see anyone getting a subscription just to use these apps. These are more like addon apps for people who use Office already and happen to have an iPad.

Re:pointless

[SuperKendall]

I agree that's what they are doing. It just seems like a huge lost opportunity. Arranging things as they have, they are now way behind companies like Evernote even though they might have a technically better product!

Hmmm... 'Free'...

[Chordonblue]

This isn't so much about a paid subscription as it is not having to pay Apple for each copy of Office sold. This is their way of getting around that. Wonder how long it'll take Apple to close this loophole in the future...

Re:Hmmm... 'Free'...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, because Apple still takes a 30% cut if you buy the subscription as an in-app purchase. This is more about getting a constant stream of money ($10/month) rather than a one-time (or every two or three years) payment of $50 or whatever.

Re:Hmmm... 'Free'...

[gonnagetya]

That might be a bonus side effect for Microsoft, but honestly, I think the primary purpose is to push for more Office 365 subscriptions. I mean it's pretty obvious, even my Microsoft's own reformation as a "devices and services" company in that they don't want to sell perpetually licensed software anymore. They want people to buy subscriptions now, and are pushing VERY hard for this. I wouldn't be surprised if the next main version of Office is subscription entirely like Adobe have done with their latest suite of software.

Re: Hmmm... 'Free'...

[VTBlue]

They skirt around this by not offering in app office365 subs.

Re: Hmmm... 'Free'...

[base2_celtic]

That's incorrect. They do offer the subscription in-app. It goes through the App Store, and Apple takes 30% if you choose to do it that way.

http://recode.net/2014/03/27/m...

Re:Hmmm... 'Free'...

[tlhIngan]

This isn't so much about a paid subscription as it is not having to pay Apple for each copy of Office sold. This is their way of getting around that. Wonder how long it'll take Apple to close this loophole in the future...

You're under the impression that it matters to Apple that people skirt the rules like that.

Guess what? It doesn't. The only thing is that for payments in the Apple ecosystem, you use Apple's payment provider to provide less confusion and annoyance to users who may wonder if the box with their credit card number in it is secure.

Apps are just a way for Apple to sell more hardware - apps, books, movies, music, etc., iTunes makes some money, but it's not at all clear how much profit it makes or if it goes into their data centers.

Contrast this to Amazon, where sales of hardware are a conduit to sell more content. So Amazon would have a problem if you did this because they want to sell content.

Re:Hmmm... 'Free'...

[Anonymous Coward]

Free for viewing, not for editing

Re:Hmmm... 'Free'...

[Savage-Rabbit]

Not really, because Apple still takes a 30% cut if you buy the subscription as an in-app purchase. This is more about getting a constant stream of money ($10/month) rather than a one-time (or every two or three years) payment of $50 or whatever.

Let's just take a look at this deal. I just bought a 356 subscription and according to the in-app purchasing wizard in the Office 365 suite on my iPad the subscription is $156 per annum. For that you are getting:

1. Word, Excel, Powerpoint and change.
2. License to install on up to 5 PCs/Macs
3. Use on mobile devices.
4. 20 GB of additional OneDrive storage.
5. Skype world minutes (60 of them per mensem)

Which sounds like a pretty OK deal to me considering the volume of product I'm getting. As far as I can tell there are no temporal usage restrictions on the PC/Mac licenses in this this sub, according to the office 365 community forums multiple users can log into the same account and edit the same document. If that is true than this subscription will cover my office needs, my parents's, my sister's and her husband's and we can split the costs. As for corporate profits.... If Apple is taking 30% then Microsoft is getting $109,8 / 12 = $9,15 per month and they still have to deduct costs and taxes. Mind you, being a corporation, MS, like Apple, Google, IBM and the rest of that ilk probably enjoy considerably lower tax rates than what Joe Six-pack has to contend with. However, MS does have to pay developers, maintain their cloud service data-centers and pay the system administrators of their cloud service department out of that and pay for marketing and other such crap. I'm sure MS makes tons of money off of this stuff but it's not like the profit meter at Microsoft HQ goes Chi-chinggggg! and increments by $9,15 every time they sell an office subscription to an iPad followed by a spontaneous chorus of manic laughter from every MS manager in the known universe over how they are ripping off their customers.

Docs to Go

[Lehk228]

how exactly is this better, in any way, than Docs to Go which is only 10-15 bucks one time, or free if you are cool with having ads, or free if you are on Blackberry 10.

Re:Docs to Go

[Anonymous Coward]

The current version is rated 2 1/2 stars. Maybe it sucks?

If you prepare documents that other people consume, or consume documents other people prepare, you need an adult office suite.

I don't understand...

[jddeluxe]

Why is it I should give a rat's ass exactly???

Re:I don't understand...

[by (1706743)]

Because one huge tech company is finally acknowledging the existence of another huge tech company's mobile operating system, something long overdue (according to some). Perhaps boring -- especially if you use neither Office nor iOS -- but certainly tech news.

Ribbons?

[angel'o'sphere]

So there are still people who think this 'Ribbons' thing is a good idea?

Re:Ribbons?

[DaHat]

While the initial presence of them took many off guard... it's been with us so long I'd wager most (who have been using them for that time) are more or less used to them and see the benefit.

Re:Ribbons?

[angel'o'sphere]

Well,
i have a Mac.
Workimg at client side with ribbons is so awfull .... sorry, what exactly is the benefit you mention?

Re:Ribbons?

[exomondo]

I find it better than the mess of menus and toolbars where some functions are in one, some functions are in the other and some functions are in both. Even on the Mac version of office the ribbons work really well. Toolbars are horrible things, just a non-contextual mess of little icons.

Re:Ribbons?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

The problem with the ribbon is that when people complain about it, they seem to forget that the alternative isn't much better from a UX standpoint and that it launched on an application that the ribbon wasn't going to fix.

Office style apps, particularly word processing is just a messy UI. Unless you want less features. Period.

When dealing with new applications, the Ribbon concept is actually quite nice addition to a UI designer's tool kit. Probably one that should be doing what traditional tool bars have been doing for years. It's cleaner. I'd rather lose some UI space in exchange for some clarity of purpose for UI elements.

Re:Ribbons?

[angel'o'sphere]

For me the ribbon just looks like multitude of toolbars, takes me always ages to find functionality that I need, as the icons tell me nothing and I have to hover over everyone to see what it does.

Re:Ribbons?

[InsectOverlord]

I hate the ribbon with a passion; however, come to think of it, on a tablet it may not be such a bad idea. Better than smartphone-style generic action buttons. And Windows CE showed desktop-style menus and toolbars don't belong on a tablet.

Not that I'd use a tablet for serious work.

Re:Ribbons?

[BasilBrush]

Office style apps, particularly word processing is just a messy UI. Unless you want less features. Period.

What on earth gives you the idea that a messy UI is intrinsic to the problem of word processing?

Word and the other MS Office apps have messy UIs because they have 25 years of legacy to cope with. Various competitors, such as LibreOffice also have legacy, plus the additional burden that they started by copying MS Office.

Re:Ribbons?

[exomondo]

The thing I like is that the ribbons are categorized and then the buttons in the ribbons are grouped (and the group is labelled), I find that makes it a LOT more useful than toolbars.

Re:Ribbons?

[angel'o'sphere]

Ribbons are better than toolbars but worth than menus, imho.
I basically never use toolbars, hence I dislike ribbons, it takes to long to find what I need.
On a menu bar I click on any menu, then keep the mouse pressed and swipe over it to find what I need, and I see the shortcuts immediately. Also on windows once you could use alt-F plus alt-S to activate File/Save etc.

Libreoffice?

[innocent_white_lamb]

Still waiting for Libreoffice for Android (which would be of use to me) and Ipad (which I guess other people would use).

The best Android app I've found for "office" stuff is Kingsoft Office but it can't work with Open Document files, just Microsoft formatted stuff. I wish I had one that would work with Open Document; it would be a lot more useful.

Re:Libreoffice?

[rasmusbr]

You'll probably have to wait a while judging by this: https://wiki.documentfoundatio...

Re:Libreoffice?

[exomondo]

Still waiting for Libreoffice for Android (which would be of use to me) and Ipad (which I guess other people would use).

Rather than waiting you should help it along by contributing.

Re:Libreoffice?

[temcat]

There is Softmaker Office for Android (commercial) which is said to be good. I personally use their Windows/Linux versions, and compatibility and interface-wise, they're the best.

Re:Libreoffice?

[Anonymous Coward]

And why the fuck "should" he do that?

Re:Libreoffice?

[exomondo]

Because if he wants it then sitting around waiting for it less productive than contributing to it...duh.

Odyssee II

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I wonder how porty the ports are.

Will I go to shut down my phone and be greeted with a popup that "Cannot quit Excel now"?

Will I thumb-whip an Excel spreadsheet to scroll down, and be greeted with a popup saying, "Insufficient resources to display", accompanied by a screen that no longer redraws?

These are both still features of 2010.

Re:Odyssee II

[Sir Holo]

MS Word has bugs that are at least 18 years old.

For example, endnotes/footnotes and cross-references inevitably screw up with "Bookmark not defined!" if you move them around. Same for Figure numbering, etc.

Example 2: PowerPoint (at least on Mac) will take minutes to open a PPT file if it contains any EPS images. This bug is just as old. And god forbid you copy-and-paste a graphic from Word to PowerPoint. It will fail to render, not for you, but for the customer you sent it to.

Completing the list of bugs >10 years old is left as an exercise to the reader.

Re:Odyssee II

[Anonymous Coward]

MS Word has bugs that are at least 18 years old.

All software has bugs, the Linux kernel has had privilege escalation bugs over a decade old for god sake. And that's open source and used a hell of a lot more than MS Word!

Implementation

[HyperQuantum]

I wonder if they wrote it more or less from scratch, or if they managed to reuse a lot of code from some other platform (e.g. Office for Mac OS X)?

Re:Implementation

[Anonymous Coward]

They already did the Metro interface version for Surface RT so they probably started with that version.

Re:Implementation

[BasilBrush]

It'd be pretty surprising if the document data models and engines weren't in separate modules from the UI.

wont install on my old ipad with ios 5.1

[Anonymous Coward]

i have the original ipad. it wont upgrade to the newer ios. microsoft word and excel wont install. there are many other apps that wont install.

Finally

[DJCouchyCouch]

I can get some fricking work done.

Nice

[shafty]

Microsoft gets interesting once you scratch the Surface.

As usual, Outlook is conspicuous...

[Radical Moderate]

...in it's absence. Honestly, is it really that hard to develop an Outlook client? I mean, I understand that Microsoft is only one of the biggest companies in the world, but, still....

Re:As usual, Outlook is conspicuous...

[jaa101]

I find the iOS mail and calendar apps work well enough with Exchange. Apple may have resisted having Outlook present as a competitor to these core apps.

Re:As usual, Outlook is conspicuous...

[Radical Moderate]

Fair enough. Exchange does behave pretty well on my iPhone.

Re:As usual, Outlook is conspicuous...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is already an OWA app for ios.

Re:As usual, Outlook is conspicuous...

[miller701]

I like the OWA app, it works well for a lot of my work flow when I'm away from the office.

Too much competition already

[Grizzley9]

Meh, I'll just use Google Docs. When that isn't enough I'll open Libre/Open Office.

While I prefer Excel, those other options do just fine for anything I'll be doing outside of work. Plus you can get Apple's suite of office apps for free as well. MS screwed themselves by making it a pay to edit setup.

Harvesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Bing and Outlook also harvest data from their users....of what little they have.

Too little, too late.

[norite]

Sorry guys, but you're way too late to the party, everyone has already been and gone and eaten your lunch a long time ago. They didn't think you'd ever show up. Your cola is still here if you want it, but it's warm and flat.

$80 for a 365 subscription? pffffft, please.

Still holding out for DOS for ipad

[jfdavis668]

I have had enough of this touch stuff on my ipad. I need to install DOS and get some real work done.

Re:Still holding out for DOS for ipad

[EXTomar]

DOS? Surely you jest! Applesoft BASIC is the only way if you want really real work done. You have to break out a magazine and type out 1000 lines without error because that is the only way to be sure to be the code is correct.

Re:Still holding out for DOS for ipad

[jfdavis668]

Isn't that built into the iPad ROM already?

Already Launch

[zisel]

I'm not surprise at all. It was launch months ago when the new Microsoft CEO take over. On the other hand, only MS Office subscriber can edit word, excel and powerpoint in ipad.

Source

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting, so Apple got a free look into the source code of (iOS) MS Office before approving it for the App store?

Less paper and more collaboration

[Dr. Evil]

People don't need paper, so programs designed to format stuff for A4 or Letter are disappearing.

People need collaboration and sharing, so online tools are greatly helpful, and generally don't require the recipient to have $300 worth of software, and non guarantee that it will render correctly.

The office suite is changing. MS Office has some improvements in electronic documents through OneNote, and Outlook/Exchange are doing some good jobs in Mobile Device Management. Sharepoint is improving collaboration. But these combinations of corporate infrastructure and office suites are very business-oriented, and mostly helpful for data self-determination, not for the general public.

LibreOffice seems to be doing none of this, and Thunderbird seems to be in maintainence mode, as though local email and calendaring has been solved and won't be addressed anymore. That said, I appreciate that the LibreOffice is continually improving in its specific areas, and Thunderbird is mostly feature-complete.

Re:Less paper and more collaboration

[Anonymous Coward]

People don't need paper, so programs designed to format stuff for A4 or Letter are disappearing.

Righto. Get a real job doing real work in the real world first, chief, before commenting

Re:Less paper and more collaboration

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much exactly this. I work at a small insurance company; last year we printed nearly 1,000,000 pages of documents and spent almost $30,000 on toner.

And, we didn't use SMS, tweet or 'OneNote' to generate those pages. Word, Excel and Acrobat on the other hand....

Office Suites are not going away anytime soon.

Re:Less paper and more collaboration

[Archangel Michael]

For Collaboration, people really ought to look at GoogleDocs. There are features here that are nearly impossible to duplicate without a very expensive infrastructure tied around Microsoft products. And if you're going to go to Office365, well, you might want to try the Google version out.

The only caveat I have for this, is proprietary documents (secret), where you don't want anyone else to know, in which case you're really talking about a very narrow market.

Re: Less paper and more collaboration

[Dr. Evil]

Most of my time in IT has been in fortune 500 companies, major consulting firms and banks. The new cubicles barely have filing cabinets. security issues and workforce mobility make paper strongly undesirable.

Re:Less paper and more collaboration

[exomondo]

People don't need paper, so programs designed to format stuff for A4 or Letter are disappearing.

Since when? I'm not sure what programs you are referring to that are designed to format for A4/Letter that are disappearing either. Even if that were true, you still need to be able to format your documents for some target media, it wouldn't remove that requirement.

Lock-in just *less* inevitable than it used to be

[Rob Y.]

The thing is, people used to buy Office for use at home, because that's what they used at work, and they needed it to work from home. So they bought a copy for their home PC - or pirated a copy from work. Or, just followed the path of least resistance and paid for a copy along with their PC, which has on and off been hard not to do.

But these days, most occasional work from home is best handled by RDP'ing into your home system (or possibly taking home your company-issued laptop). In other words, if your work uses Office, you can use your work copy of the code. So, sure Office - as a de-facto standard - isn't going away. But most casual home users don't really need it. Some users might derive enough benefit to bother springing for a home copy - and the iPad version might actually be a nice option for business travelers that don't want to lug a laptop around. But, unless you are a heavy user, or computer-phobic enough to think you can't learn to use a different app, LibreOffice will serve your purposes fine - even if those purposes have to do with docs created in MSOffice.

But getting back to why iPad, why now. That bit about casual home users is key. They haven't had Office, and they haven't missed it enough to switch to Surfaces. For a while Microsoft was hoping that would be the case, but apparently they were smart enough to hedge their bets and develop an iPad version anyway. Because they must've sensed an inflection point where a sizable portion of their user base was finally realizing they were less locked in than they thought they were. Even the arguments on here about "you just don't understand how invaluable MSO is in the real world" are arguments for accepting lock-in as inevitable. So you folks making that argument might consider that Microsoft seems to understand where the industry is going better than you do.

A production tool on a consumption device?

[Anonymous Coward]

A production tool on a consumption device? Intresting. Why not just get a Surface?

Re:A production tool on a consumption device?

[Tsiangkun]

Or, is it a way to share your powerpoint and not have to carry more than your mobile device ? We have a wifi projector at work. This is just another way to let people throw something up on the screen without moving cables around. Think of it as a presentation tool on the mobiles, that supports minor editing and layout changes and it makes a little more sense. Most people wanting this have office, and office documents, and this opens up a new way to present them.

Re:Lock-in just *less* inevitable than it used to

[Anonymous Coward]

But this will be useful for those people who bring their iPads (and the keyboard cases) to every meeting that they go to. These people will love it in that they will be able to work with those documents in those meetings instead of having to wait until they get back to their desks.

Re:Lock-in just *less* inevitable than it used to

[Rob Y.]

Right - I'm not denying the benefit for those who use MSO and pay up. Just saying that Microsoft was waiting out the clock hoping for an MSO-fueled success of its tablets. But they must see the free competition as too compelling to wait it out - even if their fans don't. If LibreOffice had hit the iPad before MSO, it could've provided considerable incentive for users to switch to that pretty damn capable free alternative that, oh yeah, happens to 'work on all my devices'.