Microsoft Office on iPad Spotted, Coming Soon to App Store

[notjustjay]

I haven't used Office since iWork came out. Well, a few years later, actually. I am curious why anyone still uses Office. The only palpable reason I read from anyone recently was because of higher functions in Excel which lacks in Numbers. The Entourage program is also said to handle larger amounts of mail better. Since I do nothing more than basic spreadsheets, I would have no awareness of Excel, and I don't handle 10,000+ mails a year (not counting junk mail).

Well, I'm glad that iWork fully suits your needs, but that's not the case for everybody. That's like me saying "I don't understand why people use pickup trucks. My little hatchback carries all my groceries and baggage just fine. Since I do nothing more than the typical activities of a single man, and I don't haul construction materials around, I have no awareness or need for trucks."

If people want to pay a lot more for the MS version, good for them. It just strikes me odd that many people still cling to Word at this time.

Well, for starters, it's what everyone already knows and was taught in school. It would take a gargantuan effort to "unseat" Office at this point.

Second, it's no longer "a lot more". The home-use licenses of Office can be had for well under $100. I think Microsoft finally realized that the only thing they were gaining by charging $400+ for it was a lot of people pirating it.

Looking back, I am amazed how much emphasis was put on office people knowing/learning Word and Excel. You can learn the basic function in 30 minutes and most of the rest in another hour, then working and referencing will make you a pro in no time.

So by your own admission, Word and Excel are easy enough to learn for basic use, with lots of room to grow into it should you find yourself needing their more advanced features?

So what was your problem with them again?

Uh, yeah. You do know that PAGES and NUMBERS output to the MS file formats, right?

I went back to university 4 years ago and they wanted MS format. I just used Pages and put it out as a MS OFFICE file (.doc) and they never knew the diff. Most professors just want a format and a file type. You can do that with Pages.

If all you need to do is write a simple paper in one program and publish it as another format (e.g. a one-way conversion), then sure, Pages probably would do the trick. But if you work in an environment where someone else authored a Word document, expects you to make your changes and then hand it back to them in Word, things start to fall apart. Especially if it was a document with precise object layouts, like cliparts, margins, tables, extra fonts. Trust me, I've been there. The same goes for OpenOffice, by the way.

I have iWork too. I love Pages, I use it for newsletters and simple brochures. But for the best interoperability with the rest of the world, you can't beat Word and Excel.

 

[powers74]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Well, that's that. iPad is officially cemented as the tablet king for the foreseeable future. Microsoft will make a mint on this cash cow. Wise move.

 

[VenusianSky]

Who would have thunk that the day would come where Microsoft "rushes" to make a product compatible with an Apple device.

Microsoft made Office for Mac before Office for Windows.

 

[empezar]

I hope they bring Dropbox support.

 

[MRU]

Who would have thunk that the day would come where Microsoft "rushes" to make a product compatible with an Apple device.

They've been making software for Apple devices for the last 15 years or more, how are they rushing ?

----------

Microsoft made Office for Mac before Office for Windows.

Very True, and a little known fact.

 

[rhett7660]

If this is true, i'll definitively get an iPad and Word, no offence, but Pages sucks. (And I'd really love some competition here, Apple. hint hint.)

Hate doing the whole "fixed" thing but...

Fixed.

Beat me to it... But I couldn't agree more. I would be most interested in the Word document and integration of OneNote. I don't like they way they have it setup now as that you have to have an ms account. Leave it open, integrate with dropbox or skydrive and I would be a very happy camper. Those are just some of my personnel comments on how I would like it seen implemented. If it does come true.

 

[henrystar]

huge

This will accelerate adoption of the iPad in the corporate world.

Now if they'd add fortran, the scientific world would be on board too!

 

[ShiftyPig]

The catch is that it has to be inexpensive like Apple's productivity apps. And not suck.

I could see MS wanting $50-70 for this.

 

[porky]

They've been making software for Apple devices for the last 15 years or more, how are they rushing ?

----------



Very True, and a little known fact.

Indeed, I'v read it in Walter Isaacson’s: Steve Jobs. Everyone should read that book.

 

[insanemccain]

finally.

 

[cmvsm]

MS knows where the money is to be had due to the iPad consumer demographic. Android fans talk about activations this and that, but as I've said, that means squat unless the developing community gets behind it, and that will only happen if you have consumers that actually buy apps. Dummy phones and watered down iPad wannabes does not translate into sales by themselves.

Android is going to have a tough time with this in terms of corporate adoption. And at the end of the day, that's where the big money and long term sustenance is.

 

[DenisAuermann]

Good

I know that a lot of people wont use this (myself included) but its always good to see options being included. And i agree this will be huge for the corporate and education areas.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

I don't know if anyone has noted this yet, but Office on the iPad signals the real decline of the traditional business PC. Apple reports it's making major inroads in the enterprise market with the iPad. Office for iOS is just one more reason for companies to ditch the big boxes. And of course M$ is set to unveil Windows 8 next week which will be a competing tablet OS to iOS. The era of the tablet has arrived. It's no longer just a gadget.

That's not to say the biz computer is going away next year or the next. Obviously the tablet isn't mature enough yet. But the evolution has begun and we'll all be laughing at our 2011 MacBook Pros just like we smirk at vintage Power Macs today.

The catch is that it has to be inexpensive like Apple's productivity apps. And not suck.

I could see MS wanting $50-70 for this.

Does Apple allow an app to be leased? If so I could see where M$ would charge an annual license fee. Otherwise if these are full featured apps I'd expect them to be priced similar to the home/office 2 license computer version. I think they could probably get away with it.

 

[VenusianSky]

MS knows where the money is to be had due to the iPad consumer demographic.

They sure do and it is called Windows Azure and SQL Azure. The more people that use iCloud, the more Apple pays Microsoft (and Amazon) to host it. I doubt Microsoft Office on the iPad will come close to the figures they pull in from Apple for the use of their cloud services.

 

[NAG]

I agree. Just remember that Microsoft used to hold a big chunk of Apple shares (non-voting) - it was not only competition but also an investment. Since their investment, Apple is MS Windows compatible and you can install it on Macs. They were the ones who helped saving Apple at the time SJ came back. Also, MS Office was first on Macs before it went to the IBM PCs.

I'll check it out. If it works well, I will buy it. I used iWorks so far, but I want to have more compatibility with MS Office products. In my work environment, MS Office is the standard.

I hope you're not implying that the investment spurred Apple to switch to Intel.

 

[macsrcool1234]

I haven't used Office since iWork came out. Well, a few years later, actually. I am curious why anyone still uses Office. The only palpable reason I read from anyone recently was because of higher functions in Excel which lacks in Numbers. The Entourage program is also said to handle larger amounts of mail better. Since I do nothing more than basic spreadsheets, I would have no awareness of Excel, and I don't handle 10,000+ mails a year (not counting junk mail).

Office's Word seems so bloated and antiquated next to Pages, though.

If people want to pay a lot more for the MS version, good for them. It just strikes me odd that many people still cling to Word at this time.

Looking back, I am amazed how much emphasis was put on office people knowing/learning Word and Excel. You can learn the basic function in 30 minutes and most of the rest in another hour, then working and referencing will make you a pro in no time.



Uh, yeah. You do know that PAGES and NUMBERS output to the MS file formats, right?

I went back to university 4 years ago and they wanted MS format. I just used Pages and put it out as a MS OFFICE file (.doc) and they never knew the diff. Most professors just want a format and a file type. You can do that with Pages. They don't need to know what program you used, unless you are in a class that is training you on the specific software, or the school is getting kickback from MS.

Some of us write real, grown up documents. For that we use Microsoft Word.

Of course iPages is always there for the kids....

 

[vrDrew]

Kudos to Microsoft for putting this together.

Love it or hate it, the Office Suite is the de facto standard for workplace productivity applications. And Microsoft probably saw the writing on the wall as far as the iPad in business is concerned. Better to keep those worker bees using MS apps on a mix of iOS and Windows machines, rather than risk losing the whole market.

I think MS has some challenges to bring Office to the iPad: Some features of the full Office suite, and probably some media formats, won't be available. But it they can make it so that ~ 95% of most users documents translate, then they'll be OK.

I wouldn't expect "bargain basement" pricing on the entire Suite. Microsoft didn't get where they are by giving stuff away. I'd expect they can rationalize something of a premium over Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. I'd guess around $30 per Application. Most companies won't balk at that sort of price, although I'd expect they'd like to be able to offer some sort of Student/Home edition for more budget-concious users.

Microsoft is absolutely doing the right thing by not putting out an Android version. Android simply makes it too easy for people to pirate Apps, leaving it up to the developer to put in anti-counterfeiting tools. Why bother? And secondly, I think that Microsoft (rightly) sees Google and Android as being overall destructive to the business they are in. Microsoft can co-exist (somewhat) happily with Apple. They simply can't co-exist with Google, whose entire business model is built around giving software away for free in exchange for the opportunity to plop ads in front of your face.

 

[warfed]

Can someone explain why Pages is so good? I'm serious... I have read how great it is, but after using it I don't see anything special in it. It seems I can make just as good a document in Google Docs or LibreOffice. In Word I can create a nicely formatted document with a good looking cover page, pretty quickly. In Pages, that takes a while.... am I missing something?

 

[ShiftyPig]

Oh Forbes.... four days ago: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsav...oft-office-on-the-ipad-dont-hold-your-breath/

I wish I could get paid for reporting like that

 

[NAG]

Some of us write real, grown up documents. For that we use Microsoft Word.

Of course iPages is always there for the kids....

I was expecting a more original troll. Care to try again? Maybe more specifics this time. Maybe something like, "real adults use Vi to edit their text documents".

 

[MacinDoc]

Some of us write real, grown up documents. For that we use Microsoft Word.

Of course iPages is always there for the kids....

It's the author, not the tool used, that makes documents professional.

Having said that, Office is the acknowledged business standard. But using Pages does not make one less professional.

 

[Skika]

Some of us write real, grown up documents. For that we use Microsoft Word.

Of course iPages is always there for the kids....

What a load of crap.

 

[Joshwawilson]

Microsoft Office for iPad can be awesome if it is really compatible with Microsoft Office for Mac. But sadly it will not be. Because Microsoft Office is not compatible between Mac and Windows, and it is not even compatible between different Microsoft Office versions on Mac, and it is not even compatible between different Microsoft Office versions on Windows. The same (not compatibility between Mac and iPad) can be said for Apple iWork. And I mean for any document created on Mac; not just the plain simple ones. So, the conclusion is clear: a really mobile Mac is needed (400 to 600 g, and as small as possible). The Mac in your pocket. Always. It is not to work on it. It is mainly for mobility and Keynote and PowerPoint presentations.

Pretty much everything you said was wrong

 

[PhoneI]

I hate to be a downer, but if Office for the iPad is of the same quality of OneNote for the iPad, I think there will be a lot of disappointed people. So many missing features.

 

[Mad-B-One]

Uh, yeah. You do know that PAGES and NUMBERS output to the MS file formats, right?

I went back to university 4 years ago and they wanted MS format. I just used Pages and put it out as a MS OFFICE file (.doc) and they never knew the diff. Most professors just want a format and a file type. You can do that with Pages. They don't need to know what program you used, unless you are in a class that is training you on the specific software, or the school is getting kickback from MS.

Errr... yea, I know that. I don't know what you studied. I have my Dual Bachelors in Psychology and International Languages. I had to be profficient in MLA and APA style to the dot of the i. Margins, double spaced, tabs on new paragraphs, quotations, foot notes, all in the correct style. That is why I downloaded templates and corrected them to my needs according to the current APA rules (they changed quite a bit during my time in college). Yes, you could do that all manually with iWorks - which I have - but it would take 8h to manually edit that in one document. All classes above second year level required at least one 15 page paper in cluding at least 10 sources and sometimes tables in APA style etc. Not even remotely doable without correct templates.
I love my iPad for text editing. I rely on MS office for writing papers. I am almost dome with my Masters now and without MS office - there is no way. If the iPad version allows for templates, it will make my life so much easier. I can go to a library, make some quotes, edit it into my .docx file and can go my way.