Another person not thinking past "Today". The member you replied to said it was a step Towards dethroning Office. I agree with this. There's just not a whole lot about Office anymore that is relevant with today's business needs. Even with Spreadsheets, most docs are transferred via PDF after creation. Compatibility is not as much of an issue anymore so each person no longer needs to be using the same Office program to share docs.
"Powerful Business Apps"? LMAO. There's nothing particularly powerful with MS Office. It's just become the defacto standard so anything else that comes along appears inferior because it's the underdog. If businesses needed powerful business apps they wouldn't be using Powerpoint, they would be using Keynote because it kicks the holy crap out of that weak a$$ PPT.
Also try and think ahead future-wise rather than being in "Today". You sound like there's no room for improvement with Numbers and iWork will never be used for business.
The world is moving to online computing and it makes things much easier for everyone to work with multiple platforms.
If I didn't know any better it sounds like you don't want innovation past what Microsoft is offering as if you have some stake in it monopolizing the world. Hmm.
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Excellent post! Too bad it doesn't give any reasons why iWork is not good.
If you don't think Office is powerful, then I question whether or not you've seen it really put through it's paces. What Microsoft did that was smart, was get gov't contracts. If you have those, you have sustainable income for the foreseeable future (Unless you pull a move like RIM, which MS isn't doing).
What a lot of these gov't and other corporations use, that may not be used by the everyday joe, is VBA. MS has VBA inside all three powerhouse office programs, plus Access. Nothing on any competitor even comes close to doing what VBA allows you to do with Office.
For instance, I can write code in VBA on Powerpoint that pulls my company's financial data from Excel charts on my hard drive, runs a statistical analysis on the data, and presents that data in a Powerpoint slide show. If I write that code once, I can run it year after year after year, and all I have to do is point to a new data file.
That's just an example, but it is EXACTLY how some corporations are so entrenched with Office that you'll never get them away from it....unless MS simply stops adding features to Office.
The kicker, is that the people working for these companies don't necessarily get Office because it's compatible, they get it because it's the same. People in general have a hard time with change, when what they've been using works. I don't think that applies to people who frequent places like this, but we tend to be the tech savy folk who dabble in change for the fun of it.
I haven't had to use any of these features for my own personal use, so there is a point to be made there, but that's why MS has Office 365. While it isn't free, it's a cheap way (compared to standard Office) for normal consumers to keep using the same product at home that they have at work.
I don't see iWork every taking business from Office in the big picture, at least not until these big corporations start writing new code or doing business in a different manner. That being said, I still hope they make a good run at it, because competition makes us (the end user) the benefactor.
