Should Microsoft Put Office On the iPad? 402
theodp writes "Microsoft is working on a touch-friendly version of Office for Windows 8, writes GeekWire's Todd Bishop. But what about Microsoft Office on the iPad? 'The decision,' Bishop says, 'will say a lot about Microsoft's priorities in this new era. The company can give Windows 8 a boost if it makes Office exclusive to Windows-based tablets. But that's also a risk. The iPad's momentum not only in the home but in the workplace opens the door for Office alternatives to take hold on the Apple tablet, posing a challenge to Microsoft Office.' Over at Minimal Mac, Patrick Rhone feels Microsoft has bigger problems than the lack of Office apps for iOS and Android. 'Like the curtain finally falling from the Wizard of Oz to find just a small, frail, man pretending to be far more powerful and relevant than he really was,' writes Rhone, 'Microsoft's biggest miss was allowing the world to finally see the truth behind the big lie — they were not needed to get real work done. Or anything done, really. And that will be what ultimately kills them.' Perhaps, but BusinessInsider — which finds it just can't quit Excel — also makes a case for why Microsoft should put Office on every platform. Speaking of the future of Office, did you ever notice how people use MS-Word to convince people to use Google Docs?"
Would *I* use it? (Score:4, Insightful)
No way. Typing on my iPad is one of the most awkward things I do in a day, but I don't blame the device. There are people in my same department at work that I have seen knock out multipage emails on one as if sitting at a regular computer.
I dunno, I just can't do it so Office would be worthless. My iPad is basically a youtube, game device, photoviewer, and mastubatory aid (porn).
I guess I'm a retard
Re:You would use it... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have the iWork apps on my iPad (and before that I relied on documents to go).
I rarely create new documents on my iPad, but I do a lot of editing, proof reading, and finalisation of documents that I then share, send on, present, etc. I consider myself highly productive on my iPad - even though I still have a notebook at my desk on which I will knock together complex presentations or spreadsheets, before iCloud syncs them onto my iPad where I will continue working on them or present them from using key note or numbers. In a typical day I spend about an hour or two in front of my notebook at my desk; and the rest of the day is spent on my iPad in meetings, workshops, waiting rooms, aeroplanes, etc.
I doubt that having Microsoft Office for the iPad will change the way I work, much. I suspect that there will be less fixing and tiding up of PowerPoint or Word documents that Keynote or Pages mangled during the conversion process. But I will still spend more than half my time on the iPad reading, editing, changing, commenting on spreadsheets, presentations and documents in collaboration with others and am unlikely to change the volume of material authored from scratch on the iPad itself just because I now have Office for the iPad.
Re:Would *I* use it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite all the spite and screaming against Apple that will populate this thread, I thought I would point out that people are *still* judging the iPad as if it were a laptop.
Its perfect for what it is: a tool that is great for certain uses, and not for others. I wouldn't do programming on one, its not suited to it - even if you use a keyboard - in my opinion but if I want to view images, watch TV off the net, use Netflix, its a perfect tool. Its well designed, performs well, seems fairly bug free, easy to use, quite portable, has good if not great battery life etc.
All that said, my wife bought an iPad, and stopped using her netbook entirely at the same time. It is serving all her needs - including writing (using a keyboard mind you) quite well, and I have yet to hear a complaint.
If I had a need for one, I wouldn't hesitate to buy one myself. I am however a desktop person. I hate laptops, netbooks etc. I might get an iPad at some point but I will most likely never buy a laptop or netbook.
Re:Would *I* use it? (Score:5, Informative)
It's a media consumption/review device. Office readers would be great. Office is such a pig for resources otherwise, that compositional tools would be plainly insane to port to iOS.
The question itself if a fishing attempt to find feature interest. Office is coming to Windows 8 in one form or another, so do they bother to port it to iOS? Same chipset (ARM) same form factor (tablet) same profile of consumer (please, no sandals vs loafers arguments).
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It has already been said [theverge.com] that Office will come out of the box on Win8/ARM - so the price is $0.
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Then buy a bluetooth keyboard for when you have to do hardcore typing.
Problem solved.
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Actually it is a valid solution. Since most of the time the iPad will be used as as a tablet, the need for the keyboard will be limited. I also didn't suggest to carry the keyboard around.
Leave the keyboard at the 'office'..
Now it would be nice if you could use a mouse at the office too..
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Why did you only read half of my post?
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Since you can VNC or RDP over to any computer, I've used Excel and Work on the iPad and it's not bad at all provided the RPD/VNC app can make the touch-screen emulate mouse functions properly. This however, will also be a challenge for MS' version of Office.
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No way. Typing on my iPad is one of the most awkward things I do in a day, but I don't blame the device. There are people in my same department at work that I have seen knock out multipage emails on one as if sitting at a regular computer.
What you need to be able to do is dictate to the iPad, and simultaneously use a pen/stylus to make any corrections/adjustments on screen.
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No way. Typing on my iPad is one of the most awkward things I do in a day, but I don't blame the device.
Of course not. That would be questioning the Holy Apple, and you don't question the Holy Apple. Instead you do mental gymnastics to avoid admitting any flaw.
On the rare occasion that I need to do any real typing on my iPad I just use the keyboard dock (or a bluetooth keyboard when traveling).
I agree that most people use tablets as a consumer device, and carrying a keyboard around the office 'just in case' is ludicrous, but real productivity apps and a dock will give users the opportunity to use their tablets for more than just consuming content or casual emails, etc. Lot's of people have docks on their desk for laptops or netbooks, so why not tablets?
As lo
Re:Would *I* use it? (Score:5, Interesting)
And this is a silly point. I was going to buy a BT keyboard for my ipad on several occasions but every time I had it in my hands and walking to the register I put it back because the words in my head kept ringing..."If you need to type that much, just grab the laptop you always have with you anyways"
I have never seen anyone that has an iPad and uses it for business, have only that iPad. they always have a laptop as well.
I know a lot of people are attracted to the fiction of only having a thin light ipad with them all day long for all uses, but it's not reality. I simply reach down and flip open my 17" macbook and do serious creation work. it wakes up within 30 seconds and is ready to go.
If the person is a very tiny weakling waif, they can get an ultrabook like an air or other type to have a light compliment that they can not get winded and pass out carrying around.
Why try to make a tablet do everything? why not use it for what it was created for? a compliment to your PC.
I just wish that a real version of Microsoft One Note would hit the ipad. you can't do handwritten notes on the ipad version. so my ipad stays in the case and the Fujitsu tablet comes out in meetings.
Re:Would *I* use it? (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is a silly point. I was going to buy a BT keyboard for my ipad on several occasions but every time I had it in my hands and walking to the register I put it back because the words in my head kept ringing..."If you need to type that much, just grab the laptop you always have with you anyways"
This is very true - for those that have laptops. As tablets become more powerful and more popular, individuals and companies will have choices to make: laptop, netbook and/or tablet? It probably won't be one of each (and may only be one if budgets continue to shrink). Some Android tablets already offer video out options, and it's not farfetched to see a tablet replacing a netbook or laptop when hooked to a docking station for some users.
It's not all about the right now. In 2, 3 or maybe 5 years, things will be very different (just look back a few years and see how far tablets and smartphones have come). I don't subscribe to the 'everything on the cloud' philosophy, but the 'cloud' isn't going away and many companies are embracing it for file & data storage. The cloud is a solution to some of the problems created by portable devices. Microsoft needs to find its place in all of this, and better pick soon because in a few years it won't be as easy to get traction, marketshare or mindshare.
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Dude, it's going to be laptops all the way. Enterprise-wise, touchscreens have advanced this much: 0.
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I have never seen anyone that has an iPad and uses it for business, have only that iPad.
Of course you haven't - usable tablets (e.g. iPad, some upcoming Android devices) are very new so the people that have them have another computer. That might not be the case several years from now.
Re:Would *I* use it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Would *I* use it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope, I have an ipad 2 and they're nonfunctional. I wish slashdot would change the interface to make them usable on touchscreens.
I wish Slashdot would change the interface to make it just plain useable.
I'm not sure I see the need (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess I can see the attraction of running powerpoint presentations from the iPad, but Office in general, is there a point?
I can't imagine you'd want to be doing a lot of text input on it, would you?
This in mind, it seems to me the whole thing is a non-story. MS is now an also-ran in the phone biz, and has no footprint at all in the tablet market. Office or no office, it doesn't seem to matter.
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I'm sure they would love to be able to do that on their iPads. I don't know if the iPad version of Apple's products do a very good job of dealing with Office documents or not. I do know that for important documents, I find I must use Microsoft Office if I want to make sure everything is formatted correctly for other Office users (i.e. LibreOffice is close, but not perfect).
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My experience is exactly the opposite. Perhaps this is due to all of the companies I have worked in being fairly high tech.
The only people in any of the companies I have ever worked in that used Office, at all, have been in sales and legal. Research people tend towards far more powerful tools such as R and MatLab for analysis and LATEX for reporting. Developers tend towards in line documentation if they can be bothered to doc at all. Accounting I guess could use excel but I have never been anywhere that
Re:I'm not sure I see the need (Score:5, Informative)
Keynote runs Powerpoint presentations.
(Also edits and exports them if it comes to that.)
$9.99
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Depends on your use case... You're right about Keynote, but it's probably the single strongest component of Apple's iWork suite for the Mac to begin with. It was developed before any of the other parts, as a program for Steve Jobs to use personally when giving his presentations and speeches, because he found it distasteful and limiting to keep using a competitor's product for the purpose.
I happen to like Pages too, but honestly, it wouldn't be nearly as compelling if it weren't for Apple including some ver
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Re:I'm not sure I see the need (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I'm not sure I see the need (Score:5, Interesting)
I have the Citrix receiver as well. I'd rather kick myself in the nuts than do anything other than novelty stuff or very very basic work related administration through it on a tablet. Basic things are possible but not worth the 5-10x increase in time and effort. If I'm out and about and get a call to fix something that requires me to "log into work", I'll try to call another engineer myself or I'll respond back to the support desk that I'll get back to them in XX minutes and either drive home if close by or go to my car, grab my laptop and find the nearest free AP. Yes, I still consider those much better options then using the Citrix receiver on my tablet.
Re:I'm not sure I see the need (Score:5, Interesting)
The biggest feature lacking on the iPad for remote desktop goodness is Apple's lack of support for bluetooth mice.
A bluetooth keyboard helps for keyboard intensive tasks, but even with GUIs that are very keyboard friendly the combination of BT + Wifi + RDP lag makes rapid tabbing or GUI widget manipulation frustrating on the iPad. Even at best, I find that a BT keyboard only adds about 25% additional ease of function on the iPad.
With a mouse, though, it would be a pretty appealing platform for RDP work, particularly if the iPad 3 display resolution rumors are correct.
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I've found that the mouse with my iPad only gets used for remote desktop and vnc, basically to control systems that are designed for mouse use.
It is pretty funny seeing a mouse cursor on spring board the first time, but not very useful compared to the touch screen.
I've only used the mouse about twice with the notepad app, and honestly both of those times were right after using the mouse/keyboard for remote desktop.
My iPads keyboard is built into its case, so is already with me. The mouse generally stays in
Re:I'm not sure I see the need (Score:4, Insightful)
This in mind, it seems to me the whole thing is a non-story. MS is now an also-ran in the phone biz, and has no footprint at all in the tablet market. Office or no office, it doesn't seem to matter.
But Microsoft is still a software company and MS Office is a de facto standard in most of the corporate world. Can they afford to ignore the millions of tablets that are finding their way into offices and everyday use? If a palatable alternative reigns supreme on tablets, will companies convert to the alternative in lieu of MS Office on the desktop to insure document compatibility?
Metro is going to be a disruptive change for a lot of companies, and if they're going to go through the growing pains of changing user interfaces and how they interact with devices, would moving away from MS/Windows/Office be much more effort? In the short term, yes. But in the long run?
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I think the question is more whether anyone will care if they do release it. I think probably not.
Well this is an interesting area of thought. Some enterprises are already turning away from it now, I guess we'll see.
Re:I'm not sure I see the need (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but I'm not sure that applies where tablets are concerned. It doesn't seem to help them in the corporate phone market.
In which case I see a lot of people moving on from windows, especially in the enterprise, or doing as they did with Vista and just not bothering to move.
Re:I'm not sure I see the need (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect that the EOL in 2014 of XP is the only reason that many companies are even bothering to look at Win7 and as they upgrade, they'll stick with Win7 until EOL in 2020 when Win12 will finally be out and then they'll move to something Nix like that looks/acts like XP instead.
Re:I'm not sure I see the need (Score:4, Funny)
MS has not yet announced a release date for Windows 8, which makes me suspect Fall 2012 is an early (and unlikely) target. Given this speculation, Windows 8's UI paradigm will not be available to the general public until more than 16 months after Android's ICS and 6 months after Mac OS X Mountain Lion (which integrates additional features from iOS to OS X).
It's not even like MS is even aiming for a moving target anymore but, instead, is taking square aim at a horse that will have died long after having left the barn.
(Don't worry about that last paragraph. My English doctorate licenses me to mix metaphors.)
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I can't imagine you'd want to be doing a lot of text input on it, would you?
I do quite a bit or text input on my Galaxy Tab. Mostly e-mail, but some other stuff as well, including some work with Google Docs, though Docs is pretty limited on Android as of yet. I have a Zagg folio case which includes a Bluetooth keyboard. The keyboard is small, but very usable, and when I close the case with the keyboard, the whole bundle is still small and light enough that it's more convenient to carry around than a full-sized laptop or even a netbook.
Of course I don't use Microsoft Office, an
Re:Complete non-story (Score:5, Interesting)
Academics are those whose mission is to pursue knowledge for knowledge’s sake. I’m not surprised many professors are entranced by tablet devices (iPads) given my own experience with them.
As a former academic who currently works in web development, I have an iPad and I wish wish WISH that I had had one when I had been a professor. I use a PDF reader (iAnnotate [apple.com]) that allows me to annotate PDFs, upload those PDFs to my desktop. From there I can (using custom PERL scripts) generate XML containing the content and metadata of those annotations, which XML objects I incorporate into an XML editor/viewer (Tinderbox [eastgate.com]) for editing, organizing, and HTML export. I bring the exported HTML into a CMS and publish that on the web. Between these pieces of software and hardware is ENORMOUS pedagogical potential
I know this because I had such a system in place as a faculty and students who hated Blackboard regularly commented how useful and more efficient my online course materials were. This was pre-tablet device (read pre-iPad), so I had been using a desktop program (open source Skim [sourceforge.net]) to make these annotations. iAnnotate is a much more direct translation of book-reading skills and had iPads existed prior to my leaving academia for the Silicon Valley, I would have been using one, too.
tl;dr: I suspect that the "ooh shiny" professors have for tablet devices is actually the realization that touch devices are a paradigm shift from desktops, a paradigm with its own set of advantages and possibilities. Faculty buy into these things not because they are easily distracted but because they have a researcher’s curiosity for useful technologies.
Ah, Excel (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Ah, Excel (Score:5, Interesting)
I use excel for stuff all the time. Little jobs... quick, repetative, formulaic stuff. That and popping open csv's.
The one I often saw abused was access. Horrible things happen when a shitty Access side-project ends up getting passed around an office.
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You seriously never encountered someone using Excel instead of a proper database? That seems to be the most common abuse and has caused untold damages to small businesses all over the world.
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I've been IT my whole life and I've always found strange the concept of "proper" anything.
If it works, it's proper.
"has caused untold damages"
And you didn't tell of them either.
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I've been IT my whole life and I've always found strange the concept of "proper" anything. If it works, it's proper.
That is a very bad philosophy to have if you work in IT. With that mindset, that is how we end up with undocumented spaghetti code, relational databases that aren't actually relational (redundant columns, occupying 4x more disk space should be needed, performing in like O(n!) time) and employment of otherwise kludgey, insecure, breakable, non-scalable IT solutions. They might work, but not as well as they should.
I know your quoted statement wasn't trying to say that and is likely a little more focused aroun
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I do this all the time (at least, I use a spreadsheet program to open a CSV database). Why?
1. The spreadsheet is in CSV (read: ASCII), so when, not if, there are problems, I can fix them in two seconds in an editor.
2. A spreadsheet program is relatively fast compared to a database program.
3. A spreadsheet allows me to view all of my data in a relatively compact way.
4. The output of a database program is going to be a spreadsheet-friendly table anyway, except you have to cut-and-paste it into a spreadsheet
Re:Ah, Excel (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, if you have a simplish problem where you need to do some calculations on some data, what would be a better solution than whipping out an Excel (or equivalent) sheet with the data and the calculations?
Well, unless you mean something along the lines of "if Excel is the right solution, then Google Docs spreadsheet is even more right solution", then I can't really argue for common desktop use case. In mobile case (like Android + Google Docs vs. WP7 + it's office apps), I haven't tried so I don't know, but
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So what?
Windows is just an extremely misunderstood puzzle game, but so far nobody has made it to the highscore.
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Ah, Excel, the most abused piece of software in the world. Is there a problem for which it is the right solution?
It is the Swiss Army Knife of the PC world.
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It is the Swiss Army Knife of the PC world.
Brilliant! Just like a Swiss Army Knife, it's rarely the best tool for the job, but it's always handy and works well enough for most purposes. Plus, people can use it without cutting off their own fingers.
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... ok?
Just call a programmer to come in and go over use and case studies with your needs instead, and wait 3 months for approval and have the IT director work with accounting in doing a cost analysis on how much return this would be to make this client/server sql app meanwhile you get fired because the boss wanted this work done in 1 week time only. ... or you open excel and just get to work? I pick Excel. Access is great for saving forms and things like that but if you have 4 or 5 people passing it around
Ok with Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
Office supports all kinds of scripting. Would Apple allow apps with such scripting support on it's app store? Would Apple allow the iDevice Office version access MS online services? Unless they've changed pretty recently, I'm under impression that anything like that is a big no-no with Apple, apps which even hint at having that kind of functionality simply rejected.
If Apple would not make exception with MS, then the iDevice MS Office would be seriously crippled, so much so that MS might be right in deciding it does not want to do that. MS is trying to develop office into a broad online offering, and I could see how Apple would not accept that on their devices.
Of course there's a different controversy of just how much scripting should office application documents support in the first place, but I'll not get into that here...
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Would Apple allow apps with such scripting support on it's app store?
No, that's definitely against the rules. And there's no way Apple would make an exception for Microsoft. Apple won the fight with Adobe and killed Flash as a platform for mobile. They're big enough not to have to make concessions to Microsoft either.
Would Apple allow the iDevice Office version access MS online services? Unless they've changed pretty recently, I'm under impression that anything like that is a big no-no with Apple, apps which even hint at having that kind of functionality simply rejected.
I have no idea what you're talking about there. It's common place for apps to work with online services.
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Would Apple allow the iDevice Office version access MS online services? Unless they've changed pretty recently, I'm under impression that anything like that is a big no-no with Apple, apps which even hint at having that kind of functionality simply rejected.
I have no idea what you're talking about there. It's common place for apps to work with online services.
I meant the combination of allowing scripting and allowing online data, apart from using Apple-provided HTML engine.
(And I'm sure Apple has spent some effort trying to figure out how to meaningfully support HTML5 without actually allowing HTML5 online applications from outside it's "garden walls", but I'm pretty sure they haven't found a way, or have they?)
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Apple has never intended there to be a walled garden for web apps. Only for native apps.
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Why not?
I think MS would be dumb to release Office for IOS as now people have no real reason to use WindowsCE and Windows Mobile anymore.
Apple will be thrilled. Many executives who are still using Windows mobile 6.5 phones because of pocket office or blackberries can not leave these platforms and buy Ipads and Iphones.
MS is just porting the crappy pocket versions of Office [cnet.com] which are basically just office viewer applications which allow light editing. Not idea as a full blown Office solution but they are gre
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Apple will be thrilled. Many executives who are still using Windows mobile 6.5 phones because of pocket office or blackberries can not leave these platforms and buy Ipads and Iphones.
If Apple was struggling to sell iPads and iPhones then that might be the case. But they're actually flying off the shelves at an ever accelerating rate. Apple has their own office apps. I think they are quite happy with that as their solution for those moving from MS Office platforms.
If Microsoft want to put MS Office mobile apps on the iOS App Store, then Apple will of course accept them - subject to the same rules as everyone else, which means no document based scripting.
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Employers love resumes in PDF.
Recruiters, the people who collect hundreds of resumes, strip contact information, and spam HR departments of all companies they know, hate PDFs.
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And coming at it from the other side, would MS let Apple take 30% from every sale?
I never thought about that, but you're right. MS wouldn't want to give Apple 30%, and Apple probably wouldn't want to cut MS a special deal.
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Microsoft sell Office:Mac shrinkwrap through the Apple Store (online + cricks and mortar). And Apple will be getting a lot more than 30% of that.
Auto Correct (Score:5, Funny)
Witch one will ween?
Just an Apple fan there... (Score:3, Insightful)
That actually sounds like someone talking about Apple more than Microsoft.
Truth is they just want MS Office on Apple products because tablets will continue to be irrelevant to a large part of the world unless they have those apps. Also, the people trying to use them for business think what's missing is Office, but when they get it, they'll be missing the keyboard too, and probably the mouse.
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Missing the point, you are.
People will continue to use laptops/desktops to create office docs, no doubt. But many will also use tablets to view/read documents.
Right now, plenty of people have the idea that you need Microsoft Office to work with documents. But as they look for alternatives for the tablets, they may find out that the same company produces a desktop version that while it isn't as feature full as MSOffice, it's much cheaper.
The author is saying the MS should create Office for every relevant pla
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Microsoft already is (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember reading about this a few months ago. The article is here [cnet.com].
Basically it is a very dumbed down version designed just to read office files on the go similiar to the pocket Office versions for WindowsCE of the past. They do not want adoption of IOS, but the pocket versions do encourage Windows and Office on desktop computer and kills smaller companies or Apple from getting a foothold in the market which would then threaten Windows.
MS has to be careful and walk a very fine line here. This would negate the reason to buy a Windows smart phone as the only reason people bothered with WindowsCE organizors over palm was the ability to read work documents. Now this gives a great reason for these executives and directors to buy an Iphone. Great now I can work on them too!
Office file formats are not going anyway. I got modded down here a few times saying I can't leave Office because I can not guarantee that my resume will look the same on someone elses computer running Office if I make it under LibraOffice. For that reason it will stay forever in business and MS Office is not going anyway as suppliers and customers will think you are incompentent if you send a document that looks funny on their computer.
So if I worked at MS I would only release Office for Windows 8 and Windows mobile and not care what Google and Apple do as I would have the ball no matter what.
Re:Microsoft already is (Score:4, Insightful)
Office file formats are not going anyway. I got modded down here a few times saying I can't leave Office because I can not guarantee that my resume will look the same on someone elses computer running Office if I make it under LibraOffice. For that reason it will stay forever in business and MS Office is not going anyway as suppliers and customers will think you are incompentent if you send a document that looks funny on their computer.
If you can't figure out how to make a pdf then maybe they're right.
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If you think it is ok to send a pdf maybe they are right about you instead?
That is a no no in business as HR and management love to highlight and edit cover letters and resumes back and forth in internal emails. Ask any job coach or HR person? Something not editable is quickly deleted. Also look around at various job sites and internal resume submission apps on corporate websites? They all want Word docs. Sometimes they will request a PDF, but almost always will require a Word doc. Some will accept plain te
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MS Office is not going anyway...
s/MS Office/WordPerfect/g
Office elsewhere? (Score:2)
MS Office (& Outlook) is for the learning-impa (Score:2)
No. (Score:2)
Next question.
Oh, you want a reason. No keyboard.
Next question.
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I agree that they shouldn't, but not for any hardware reason.
Apple no longer need to rely on killer apps like they used to in the days when PageMaker, Photoshop, Protools etc were what sold Macs. They've sidelined the companies that once made those killer apps, and even introduced competing Apple products. I don't think it's controversial to assert that their priorities are clearly Apple and its shareholders first, customers second, developers and other third party ecosystem content and service providers th
Last sentence in summary? (Score:2)
Maybe it's too early...
"Speaking of the future of Office, did you ever notice how people use MS-Word to convince people to use Google Docs?"
Could anyone explain what this means, and what the linked-to page is illustrating?
SlashFUD (Score:3, Insightful)
'Microsoft's biggest miss was allowing the world to finally see the truth behind the big lie — they were not needed to get real work done.
Only on slashdot is Microsoft Office dying or not needed any more. Back in the real world; the place many here I'm sure must forget exists or something, Office 2010 is selling better than any other MS Office suite before - http://www.techspot.com/news/44268-microsoft-office-2010-turns-one-is-the-fastest-selling-version-ever.html [techspot.com].
MSFT aren't the evil machine they used to be, kids. Move on.....move on......
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Slashdot used to be composed of college kids a decade ago with no work experience outside of school projects and sourceforge. I guess some still have not worked in an office yet who write such things or are just hopefully MS Office dies a horrible death :-)
I have a love hate relationship with it. I hate Word particularly. But I only use Office and not LibraOffice because I live in the real world. I support these apps for a living and need to know how they work and how to anticipate their weaknesses. Also I
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MS bamboozling Android phone makers into patent royalties implies MS is just as evil a machine as they ever were. They simply have less weapons now that the hardware scene is shifting away from machines that can run their bloatware.
Does it make money or not? (Score:2)
That really is the only question that need to be answered. Prove to the shareholders that it will, and they will support it.
Office 365 (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft is not stupid. The future of office is not on the desktop, it is in the cloud. This is why they made Office 365, which works on any modern web browser, including the iPad.
There is not need for a "native app" for an office suite. If anything, just do what 50% of developers already to and wrap the website in a "native app" UI so that it shows up on the appstore.
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Excel on a tablet?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, I can understand wanting some kind of rudimentary spreadsheet viewing/editing application for tablet/mobile devices, but Excel is a particularly good example of a program that really needs a physical, full-size keyboard. There are numerous key combinations and shortcuts that are absolutely essential for efficient usage of Excel. If you're doing any kind of spreadsheet work, you need a keyboard with a numeric keypad, cursors, and Ctrl/Alt/Shift/F-number keys. Tapping an on-screen keyboard just isn't going to cut it, especially when that keyboard takes up valuable screen space that would otherwise be used to display more cells.
In a way, Excel is like Photoshop in that regard. Keyboard shortcuts are huge. These are applications that have evolved their present UI design to suit a desktop computing environment to the point where it would be incredibly cumbersome to adapt it to a tablet device with no mouse, no physical keyboard, and limited screen size. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but if you did actually manage to accomplish the task, users would almost have to completely relearn how to use the application. Nor am I saying that one should even attempt to design a full-featured version of Excel for tablet devices. My view is that tablets really are best suited for content consumption for most kinds of quantitative or visual data. It has nothing to do with whether we're talking about an iPad or some other tablet. The essence of what Excel does, and how the user creates spreadsheets in it, is something I don't think could translate well to such a device. And in light of this, I think the question of whether some incarnation of Office should be developed for iOS seems to be besides the point.
Re:Excel on a tablet?? (Score:4, Informative)
Okay, I can understand wanting some kind of rudimentary spreadsheet viewing/editing application for tablet/mobile devices, but Excel is a particularly good example of a program that really needs a physical, full-size keyboard. There are numerous key combinations and shortcuts that are absolutely essential for efficient usage of Excel. If you're doing any kind of spreadsheet work, you need a keyboard with a numeric keypad, cursors, and Ctrl/Alt/Shift/F-number keys. Tapping an on-screen keyboard just isn't going to cut it, especially when that keyboard takes up valuable screen space that would otherwise be used to display more cells.
If you think shortcuts on an on-screen keyboard are the way UIs on touch devices are done, you haven't understood how they work. On touch devices, there are no shortcuts. The on-screen keyboard is used for text entry, nothing more. If you want to select a cell, you just tap on it, you don't press some kind of arrow button. If you want to make something bold, you tap the bold button right next to the text field. With a pure software UI, you can make any special-purpose input you want. For example, take a look at the Numbers number keyboard [macobserver.com]. You just have exactly the buttons you need, and they say exactly what they do. No need to remember any shortcuts or functional correspondences.
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Wow, how did that comment get modded 5, Informative?
The shortcuts aren't about just moving around and selecting cells. If you think that's what this is about, then you obviously are not much of a user of Excel. It's about the ease, immediacy, and PRECISION of filling in cells with formulas based on references to other cells and automatically selecting ranges of cells based on whether they contain something. If I had to pinch and swipe and drag and double-tap my finger or fingers across a tablet every tim
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An application like Photoshop could still be very valuable on a tablet even if the UI has to change dramatically to fit the tablet idioms (like not relying on keyboard shortcuts). Photoshop in particular comes with a lot of image-processing features and algorithms that its competitors just don't have (e.g. the GIMP, which doesn't support CMYK image editing). So even though the users would need to relearn it, there would still be value in them doing so.
Excel's competitors have probably done a better job matching its features it than Photoshop's competitors have, so it may not enjoy the same market advantage on a tablet.
Nobody who does advanced Photoshop uses a single monitor anymore, much less some dinky little 8 - 10 inch thing. Yes, you can do simple image manipulation without all that, but you don't need Photoshop and the App Store is full of simple programs that do exactly that - including something called Photoshop.
But lack of macros, lack of ability to calibrate the screen, lack of ability to put files where you want them (as opposed to where Steve thinks they should go), lack of memory and a whole list of other fe
MS should move toward "apps"? (Score:2)
I think this signals a fundamental change in mobile computing. Microsoft has clung to a (now outdated) model of forcing the same Windows apps on all "Windows" devices. Apple saw that there needed to be a differentiation between desktop applications and mobile "apps" in order for the mobile apps to be the best for that device. Their Tablet PCs aren't the answer. The day that Microsoft figures this out and makes a way to easily create a mobile app of some kind and separates the desktop and mobile platforms th
What use is a fondleslab anyway? (Score:2)
OK, so there are some uses (such as (a) being able to look something up on the internet from the sofa without wasting a few seconds walking to the always-on desktop, and (b) being able to carry all your holiday snaps around to show to people who didn't know they wanted to see them, and (c) there are some cool games for two-year-olds to play with) but none of them apply to me.
So, I use computers for email (fondleslab no use without an add-on keyboard), web (ditto, unless you stick to read-only sites), softwa
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Is it funny that my fondleslab keyboard is an add-on, but my desktop one isn't? They are physically the same keyboard, just my desktop isn't much use without it, but my fondleslab can still do a few things.
One of them is be mixed signal scope (with oscium plugs, which I suppose are an add-on'). I knew that watching lines squiggle across the screen was a lot like watching youtube videos, so I thought it would be a nice fit. It was.
I'm sorry to hear that software development == Visual Studio. Shell (th
Apple should buy Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
With Microsoft's stock not performing for the last few years (a decade?) maybe Apple should just buy Microsoft with it's gigantic amount of cash ($100B and soaring!).
Not only would it guarantee, forever, Microsoft products on Apple platforms but it would enable Apple to completely dictate the future of the PC industry. Even Android would probably crumble, what use is your smartphone if your competitor controls ALL the PCs that you'd likely use it with? As well as providing a viable alternative to Google search?
Maybe that's why Apple's been saving its pennies. Can you think of a better use for (in a few years) a couple hundred billion dollars?
(Ok, ok, I know the regulatory agencies in all over the world will likely have some anti-trust issues with this. But it's a useful fantasy to see what Apple's cash hoard could be used for.)
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Too late... (Score:3)
Here's an interesting article that says Microsoft (pronounced 'Ballmer') missed the boat: http://minimalmac.com/post/17758177061/microsofts-biggest-miss [minimalmac.com] Tablets in general are proof that Microsoft Office is not 'required' to do useful work. So even if MS could jam Word into a tablet form-factor (e.g. memory and screen footprints), people are now realizing you don't need all that crap to write letters, reports, etc.
(As someone who once spent several months, full-time, evaluating word processors, this is not a surprise to me. MS Word is a mediocre product, in true Microsoft fashion it captured and locked in the market through sales and distribution, not through technical merit.)
a fly on the wall on microsoft... (Score:3)
Exec responsible for Office sales: "An ipad port has the potential to send Office sales through the roof, especially if we price it reasonable enough to insure significant penetration."
Exec responsible for Windows sales: "Office is one of the driving factors in Windows sales."
Balmer: "No Office on the ipad. We will use it to drive sales of Windows 8 tablets."
Exec responsible for Office sales: "With all due respect, the company needs a product line to rely on once Windows declines. This could be a big opportunity to be relevant this decade."
Balmer: Throws a chair.
Re:woo! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:woo! (Score:4, Insightful)
WTF for? I mean, who is going to use it? Who would ever pay for it? Why would I want it? Maybe Suse would put it in a default installation, but I haven't used Suse in a long time either.
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Re:woo! (Score:5, Funny)
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but will it have enough memory to run any Microsoft software ?
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So many people here seem to be missing the point.
The fact that you were compelled to find and install (and pay for?) an Office alternative is exactly what the author is saying: it destroys the idea that many people have that you need Microsoft Office(tm) to do real work (Yes, reading documents counts as real work).
If you find OnLive's performance acceptable and they release a desktop version for much less than Office, maybe you won't buy Office for your next desktop either.
It's all about having mindshare.
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Right, sorry.
and burn up your data plan? and make roaming cost (Score:2)
and burn up your data plan? and make roaming cost $$$$ as with out a international data plan and you don't even need to be outside the usa as you can be in boarder area pick up a non us tower and get hit with fees as high as $20 a MEG!
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Microsoft need fear no "Office Alternative". If LibreOffice couldn't kill the inferior and more expensive Microsoft Office, after OpenOffice couldn't do it, after StarOffice and Word Perfect and LotusNotes or whatever Lotus' foray into a word processor was called, and KOffice, and on and on all the way back past Enable O/A, WordStar, and Format ][ couldn't stop the M$ Office juggernaut, how is an app for a stinking PAD going to do it? No one in his right mind would try to use a touchscreen to do any real typing. I want to hear of someone writing a 500+ page novel entirely on a stinking PAD, then editing it, etc.
Except those had to compete with MS Office, so they never gain market share.
On the iPad, on the other hand, people are forced to look for alternatives if they want to read office docs, instead of falling back to what they know. And that can be dangerous if they find that those same companies have desktop versions which are Good Enough and much cheaper.
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No one with an actual job is relying solely on post-pc devices to do their "real work".
Except of course the many that do.
Of course that doesn't mean that they don't also have a Mac or PC. Just that for at least part of their job, an iPad or an iPhone is the better tool.