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Microsoft Announces Office 2016 and Office For Windows 10 Coming Later This Year
An anonymous reader writes At its Windows 10 event yesterday, Microsoft unveiled the touch-optimized version of Office. Today, the company offered more details about that version, and then snuck in another announcement: the next desktop version is under development, it is called Office 2016, and it will be generally available "in the second half of 2015." Office for Windows 10 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook), meanwhile, is also slated to arrive later this year, though Microsoft has shared more about it and plans to offer a preview in the coming weeks. These new Office apps will be pre-installed (they will be free) on smartphones and small tablets running Windows 10. They will also be available to download from the Windows Store for other devices.
Windows 10 is Windows 8.1 with a Windows 7 Start Menu - it really isn't a big change, so think of it as SP3 (Windows 8.1 was SP1 for Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 Update was SP2). It will be a free upgrade for Windows 8 users, and - given that MS is finally taking its tablet market seriously - is likely to have efficiency improvements rather than bloat.
I'm still surprised how fast Windows 8.1 works on my low end HP Stream tablet - this isn't the company that brought you Vista any more.
(Of course, few'll take the Metro interface seriously until there is a method to sideload Metro apps on non-developer machines without shelling out $3000+ for a volume pack of licenses - most economic activity does not take place in enterprise or hobbyist markets, but among small businesses, and MS used to understand this.)
Apparently the screenshots in the article are the full-screen "touch" versions. I'd expect the regular versions to have the full ribbons just like 2010 or 2013 (which I've actually grown to like, because they expose keyboard shortcuts for practically EVERYTHING).
These new Office apps will be pre-installed (they will be free) on smartphones and small tablets running Windows 10.
It's not free if you have to buy something else to get it. Just my 2 cents.
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
People always go on about how wonderful LibreOffice (or whatever they're calling it these days) and Google Docs are. They're not. They can do the basics but they can't take the semi-pro market like Office can.
THIS! I once tried installing LibreOffice on my computer, and my computer self destructed! Melted the damn thing, Before that it inserted "fuck " instead of "and", in every letter I typed. the spreadsheet couldn't add 2+2, then my dog ran away, my wife left me, the lower 40 got accidenatlly planted in Monsanto corn and they sued me, and my milch cows went dry.
Actually, it has been a few years since I used Microsoft Office.
Have they solved the cross platform compatibility problems yet? Office isn't even compatible with iteself. Used to spend a lot of time repariing documents and PowerPoints on the Mac that got balled up when coming from the PC side.
If you are trading files between MS, MAC, and Linux systems, how does Microsoft Office do?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I was anti-ribbon back in 2007 as well, until I read a blog post by a Microsoft programmer that basically said, "look dummy, every single item you had access to with these cumbersome menus is available on screen." Certainly I wouldn't accept that at face value so I opened up Office 2003 and tried to find an equivalent function I couldn't find in 2007 and in doing that, I realized it really was 'all there' and shortly thereafter became a devout Follower of the Ribbon.
Except in Microsoft's recent pattern, FINDING those items is much more difficult and less intuitive. What was once a single-click to see all your options from 'View' (for instance), is now a "click and hope" funfest as you meander from ribbon to ribbon trying to come across what you're looking for.
The layouts are not intuitive, they have moved items from where they used to be, have buried items in sub-entries and it takes longer to accomplish what you want.
By any measure, that is not an upgrade no matter how many people wish it to be so.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
LibreOffice has the potential to be fully cross-platform, and it would seem to me to be to Apple's benefit to make it seriously good. The reason iPhones and iPads were able to take off is that the web (and web standards) made it possible to do most of what you do with a computer without that computer having to run Windows. Macs have benefited from that - as well as the fact that the success of the iThings has accelerated the process.
A successful LibreOffice would be the next step toward making the second biggest use of computers cross-platform. In fact, Microsoft's last best hope for success in mobile lies in the fact that Windows tablets can be bundled with MSOffice. Yes, they're coming out with iOS and Android versions - but that's just a desparation move. The minute Windows mobile devices gain some traction (or the iOS/Android versions outlive their usefulness in some other way), the non-Windows versions will become second-class. But if Libre got really good - and became available (and successful) on mobiles - iOS devices would continue to be able to compete on the merits. You'd think Apple would want to help that happen. Are they still afraid of losing the official MSOffice for the Mac? Google seems to have a difference of opinion about where document processing should happen. Much as a full-featured office suite would make Android laptops a viable - and even attractive - alternative, that doesn't seem to be their priority (though their use of Open Document formats in their online apps is helpful).
Windows will continue to dominate in the business world. There's just way too much inertia there in terms of third-party apps. But mobile (and, yes, Chromebooks) have demonstrated that the general public doesn't need or particularly want it at home. A cross-platform, full-featured office suite would just solidify that trend.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...