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Microsoft Office Now Available On All Chromebooks (theverge.com)

Microsoft has reportedly finished testing out its Office apps on Chromebooks as a number of Chromebooks are now seeing the Office apps in the Google Play Store. Samsung's Chromebook Pro, Acer's Chromebook 15, and Acer's C771 have the Office apps available for download. The Verge reports: The apps are Android versions of Office which include the same features you'd find on an Android tablet running Office. Devices like Asus' Chromebook Flip (with a 10.1-inch display) will get free access to Office on Chrome OS, but larger devices will need a subscription. Microsoft has a rule across Windows, iOS, and Android hardware that means devices larger than 10.1 inches need an Office 365 subscription to unlock the ability to create, edit, or print documents.

6 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  2. Re: IT'S A TRAP! by gravewax · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That is hardly proof of anything, they develop for platforms based on popularity. Desktop Linux is a fraction of the audience of any of the OS's they support and of those on Linux that use it as a desktop only a fraction of those would be willing to pay for an office product. support for a distro has to make sense and I doubt the support cost for Ubuntu or Mint would make financial sense.

  3. Re:With M$ IT'S always a trap by volodymyrbiryuk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    M$ is scared shitless of Google so they try to regain some ground in the office department, cause Chromebook users started using Google Docs more. They won't become a monopoly again because they are a de-facto monopoly for office applications but hopefully this will change in the future.

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  4. Re:Wow! by Bert64 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you need 100% compatibility you have to be running the exact same version, on the exact same hardware and configured to use the exact same printer... In practice, 100% compatibility is never achieved with the msoffice files and you can just get varying degrees of compatibility depending what you're doing... In some instances, libreoffice actually does a better job of opening files and in some it doesn't. The only real difference is that people are conditioned to accept the incompatibilities and bugs with msoffice so they overlook them.

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  5. Re:Why? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I always send my CV in PDF form. As well as almost always displaying correctly on a variety of systems, it prevents information leakage. Last thing you want is for the prospective employer to hit ctrl-Z a few times and see what edits you made.

    The only people who have demanded Word documents have been recruiters. If they do, run. The only reasons they want the Word document are so that they can copy/paste the contents into a portfolio more easily, or so that they can edit it themselves.

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  6. Re:With M$ IT'S always a trap by kurkosdr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While Google Docs can't hold a candle to MS Office (it cannot do something as basic as auto page numbering in a table of contents), Microsoft wants to cover their bases, and particularly those people who need very basic Office formatting capabilites. Microsoft is afraid that Google Docs will become an acceptable "baseline". Would go as far as saying "scared shitless" though. MS Office's bread and butter, aka universities and businesses, are not threatened. The sheer number of templates available makes a big lock-in.