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Microsoft Is Bringing Office to the Windows Store (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: At its Microsoft EDU event in New York City today, the company announced it is bringing Microsoft Office to the Windows Store. We're talking about the full Win32 version of Office -- this is not a mobile version, Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app, or an otherwise dumbed-down release. Terry Myerson, executive vice president for Microsoft's Windows and Devices Group, confirmed onstage that Word, Excel, PowerPoint, "and more" were coming. He did not give a date for the launch (Update: Microsoft confirmed after the event that the target is June). Office is not the first set of Win32 apps in the Windows Store. This is part of a broader effort called Project Centennial, which lets desktop developers package and publish their existing .NET and Win32-based Windows applications to the Windows Store. The app type was first unveiled at Microsoft's Build developer conference in April 2015, but the first apps only started arriving in September 2016.
You couldn't buy word on the windows store? That can't be true, can it?
Bird is the word!
Sounds like a threat.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Microsoft Sells Their Own Software in Their Branded Store!
Come on, slashdot, don't use bots for clickbait, you need some real humans to write your clickbait for this demographic.
Not that surprising. We're not exactly dealing with a rational company here.
I'm afraid it is. They're finally being added to "beef up" the Windows Store.
Why don't they make a 64 bit version of office and release that? Also will this be a buy once version or a pay per month subscription model?
Funny how this is announced in step with the announcement of Windows 10 S, which will only run things from the Windows Store. Seems like the timing is related.
Learn to love Alaska
Dude, look at surface hubs. It was already there
It should read: Microsoft is bringing office software cloud rental to the Windows Store. Or "All your docs and com are belong to us first!". With the death of and expense of the mistakes they have made in the cell industry it seems that they are now hell bent on removing vendors the way they tried with the tablet and cell manufactures and vendors. When will they learn that you have to pull the pistol out of the holder before you pull the trigger?
I see a butt tonne of layoffs on the horizon and Redmond is going to start to look like a ghost town if they don't get their act together and service their billions of customers, manufacturing partners and distributors with deference and perhaps some respect for a change. The next 3/4 will tell the tale and if their earnings drop and they do not bring in the axe for parts of the business they will take a pounding on the street. One thing about the stock market it does not tolerate loosers very well unless there is a possible massive government bailout like what happened in 2008 with the loan securities rackets fiasco. A massive downswing in Microsoft could have serious financial consequences especially for Seattle. Somehow though I do not quite see an opening for Open Office or Word Perfect or Lotus coming back to give people a real choice other than what we have been all spoon fed by Redmond Inc.
But Microsoft had better pull up their socks and stop pushing Win10 and the cloud on businesses or someone like IBM might just come back from the dead and bite them in the ass big time simply by creating a server/client office system that can run stellar on all the older hardware out there. Who knows maybe even HP, Dell and Lenovo could get together with IBM and finally give us something really flexible and less cloud oriented than the stuff we are seeing coming out of Redmond. But then again hell might freeze over first. ;-)
so it begins the great shitstorm of our time,
the gates are closing
Inception: Buying Windows from the Windows store.
as soon as they convert windows to a subscription-only model. then it'll be try-before-you-pay-every-year-(or-format-and-install-a-pirate-version)
You couldn't buy word on the windows store?
Yeah, this doesn't make any sense. I know you could buy Office in stores -- but all your got was a product key card that you were them required to add to a Microsoft Account online to download the installers.
A win32 app is not a true UWP app, it will still only run on the same devices as before... All this will do is cause confusion
"Oh I can run Office on my phone or Xbox!"
Nope...
Wait, so you still have to actually buy windows? So everyone bitching about windows 10 actually paid money for it?
FYI you can download the latest macOS for free from the mac app store.
Still don't care. Winblows is a malware made by stupid parasitic indo-chimps.
To be honest, it would have otherwise been surprising, because even Microsoft themselves know that their crappy store is a wasteland, but they kind of had to. They probably wouldn't have bothered doing this if it hadn't been for the upcoming release of "Windows 10 S", which stands for "Windows 10, Shit edition".
If Microsoft actually wanted Office in this way for any other reason, I'm sure they would have gone the extra mile and outright made it into a UWP app, but even they don't want to swallow that turd.
That's actually the strange kicker, too. Basically every non-Microsoft consumer OS made except doesn't come with any ads, and yet they're all free. Yet Microsoft includes ads and adware built in to the OS and still charges you money for it. I think Microsoft stole the cable/satellite TV industry's playbook.
It might be that, but I think realistically it's Windows 10 Spend Money* Edition.
*You can only buy from Microsoft.
With the (very) recent release of Windows 10 S, and with it only being able to download and install apps from the Windows store. It makes complete sense.
Windows store is a dismal void, containing only a few crappy 'new' style windows apps. Microsoft has completely misunderstood the concept of a package manager, and its utility in managing dependencies. On top of that, wants to take a cut of third party app sales. It is simply never going to happen.
Funny how this is announced in step with the announcement of Windows 10 S, which will only run things from the Windows Store. Seems like the timing is related.
Both are a consequence of Microsoft giving up on mobile, without convergence they don't need UWP so they don't care if it's a "classic" application anymore. They're still trying to salvage their "take a cut from every sale" strategy of copying Apple, but if they don't do anything there's no reason for manufacturers to use the store. So the store-only version of Windows is a poorly hidden attempt to sell crippleware under the guise of being educational while goading manufacturers to make store versions of their software, with Microsoft leading by example.
I think this frog is severely under-cooked, but if they play hardball with their educational licensing maybe they can create a large enough market that "need" store applications to make third party developers fall in line. Microsoft is trying to overcome a catch-22 here, it could severely backfire if those who are persuaded to use it make a big stink about how it doesn't run all the oddball educational apps they need instead. But at the end of the day this is all Microsoft is left with after the last 5 years from Windows 8 being pretty much a total flop where even free upgrades have so far failed to overtake Windows 7.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Windows Store apps are limited - you have to do it as a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app, which means CLR and other restrictions.
Office is still fundamentally a Win32 application and far from universal.
And I'm still sitting here with my copy of office xp on a disc. Works on every version so far but I guess I'll have to make sure I don't get this S shit? Is that a pay for thing or are they going to force it on me like crabs?
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
You can download Linux and use it for free also. It doesn't spy on you or hide its Code. You have a choice what OS you want to use now, no more trying to rationalizing your usage of Windows or Mac. It's not the 90's any more.
I don't actually want to slag off Windows, Microsoft or the people who swear by Microsoft products - but every time I see this kind of news, I'm just so happy I left it behind and moved to Linux. It is strange, and not a little sad, to look back to the time when DOS and Windows were so cool and I thought of Microsoft as pioneers in making computer freedom possible. I used to love programming for Windows 3, as poor ad rickety as it was, but then they started turning the thumbscrews ever harder.
I have no idea whether MS Office gives me any advantages over Open-/LibreOffice, and I don't care. I do know that every time my wife gets into trouble with her MS Office documents, I take them over to Linux and sort them out. And, living in a world of Linux and mathematics, I have discovered LaTeX (not the kind you use for your kinky interests, the kind you use for kinky typesetting), and what a joy that is, especially compared to what is on offer in office programs. I know, you can get that on Windows, but it's just a lot less convenient there.
Remember, with Apple you had to buy the hardware from them. The markup already paid for multiple OS upgrades during the hardware's lifetime. With Microsoft, you paid for your OS license when you bought someone else's hardware. They added the OS as a bulk buy and paid a big discount over the retail price. Microsoft has to make their money somewhere.
FYI you can download the latest macOS for free from the mac app store.
Only as an upgrade. If you have a preinstalled version of Sierra, for example, you can't tie a "purchase" of Sierra to your account. You can do Internet recovery to Sierra, but you can't download the installer to do a bare install yourself.
Because Apple makes money on the hardware so they can give away the software for free.
With Linux you get what you paid for.
and if something doesn't work right, it's your fault for being a dumb normie and it means you're not good enough for the sekret club of GNU/Linux.
They're still trying to salvage their "take a cut from every sale" strategy of copying Apple
Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade preceded Apple's iOS App Store in this respect.
...since in the (distant?) future you won't be able to install programs from outside the Windows Store at all
So, assuming this is the existing Win32 version of Office repackaged to live in the app store, can we also assume it's the X86 version? Or are they providing tools to build native ARM versions of Win32 apps. Are all 10 S devices required to use Intel processors?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
I pointed this out to Microsoft back during the windows 10 beta.
You still can't buy most Microsoft products on their own store. That's how useless their store is.
Sort of - you could get the UWP-native "mobile" versions in the store (and honestly, the do most of the basic functionality.) They largely exist because they're better for tablet/mobile/phone use.
But yes, this is Microsoft starting to eat their own dog-food. Now, when Visual Studio and the associated developer tools are released this way as well, and they open it up to officially 'port' The Gimp and other OSS products to the store, we might see some traction.
(I do wish 7-zip would be officially in the store, if only to cut down all the '8-zip' and other knock-offs in there.)
Just... get rid of impediments. Microsoft should be asking themselves, why isn't every application being distributed this way? (But by the same token, they can't do whatever random developers want - they should remove as many impediments for devlopers as possible without affecting the user experience of the store and W10 in general.)
I like the S though, I used to run Win 3.11 with the 32s extensions. Kept me from having to use Windows 95.
Windows 10 has way bigger problems than an S.
Android has neither ads nor adware, nor does it even come with apps that show any kind of ads (unless you count ads found on websites while using Chrome.) Some OEMs add adware/trialware/crapware, but Google doesn't, especially in their first party devices which (at least until Pixel) were sold at below cost.
Even if Android did have ads, it would be somewhat excusable because you literally pay nothing for it; the cost isn't even baked into your device. Yet Microsoft not only makes you pay for Windows, but they put ads into the OS itself IN ADDITION to including ad laden apps.
So, Microsoft wants to prove that the Windows Store concept works, by eating their own dogfood by using it as a distribution channel for regular Win32/Win64 software.
Let's have a look for all the Microsoft Products that I use, to see if I can aquire them through Windows Store:
Microsoft Code for Visual Studio : No
Microsoft Office : No (not yet)
Microsoft Visio : No
Microsoft Visual Studio Community Edition : No
Okay, so let's look at my favourite / most used third-party bits of software:
Google Chrome : No, but loads of apps that are called things like 'Google Chrome guide'
Mozilla Firefox : No, but I can buy a copy of the clint eastwood film.
Google Earth : No, but there seems to be lots of music called 'Google Earth'
JDK : No
JRE : No
Apple iTunes : No
Adobe Creative Cloud : No
Autodesk Fusion 360 : No
Autodesk Autocad : No
Scratch : No
If Microsoft have a way of delivering correctly licensed Win32/Win64 packages to Windows users, with a single reliable, trusted update / patching mechanism, that they don't overcharge developers for then they may be onto a winner. Until then, Windows users are stuck with downloading from random sites on the internet, that may themselves be full of corrupt advertising links and malware. Until I see all the software I'd actually want to use on the Windows Store, the cut-down version of windows isn't going to cut it for me, and most Windows users.. Even in the education market.
You already needed a Microsoft Account to install Office, so who really cares? For that matter, if you don't want MS to own you, why are you running Office? Or Windows?