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MR should start a poll to see how many iPad owners plan on subscribing to Office. I'm curious as to how much interest there is.

For me, this would have to be accompanied by a usable on-device hierarchical file system, to make me interested in using this for content creation.

If I think how I use MS Office on my PC desktop, it involves a lot of file opening and closing, cutting and pasting, flexible editing, and fairly strict versioning of complex files that get edited repeatedly over time.

Without that sort of workflow ability, then for me this is no better than the many available document viewers and limited editors out there, or even Pages, which I know many people use quite satisfactorily.

Essential for me is a fully customisable file storage structure for my >5000 Word documents, etc.

Until that is available, this is of limited value to me personally, and I will continue to need my desktop PC and MS Office for Windows....
but I will watch developments closely!
 
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Now let's see if he's smart enough to do this without requiring an Office 365 subscription...

Are you kidding?

It would be incredibly stupid for MS to offer this WITHOUT a subscription to Office 365. Why let Apple take 30% of your sales?

Besides this is a very strong push for their overall 365 platform.
 
All I can say is speak with your wallets people. There are hundreds of 2003, 2007, etc years of Office kicking around on eBay, and probably at various places of work. Other than stability issues on newer versions of OS X, is there any reason to force yourself into the latest and greatest? I do't think so.

If I had to, I'd rather run Office 2003, under Windows XP/Vista/7, in Coherence mode on Parallels than buy a subscription to a word processor and spreadsheet software. Even the online version of Office on OneDrive for free would be fine otherwise.

Personally, my biggest issue with this new iPad version of Office is the ugly ribbon interface which doesn't seem appropriate for a touchscreen.
 
MacRumors forum pundits aside, this makes the iPad all that much more attractive to the enterprise, which is a big deal.

I like some of the UI tweaks they've made.

I don't like the tying of the Microsoft Cloud to it though.
 
Buzz phrases of the day from Nadella: "innovation vectors" and "developer surface area". Any idea what either of those mean?

I'm not fully versed with Microspeak, but if I had to guess, "innovation vectors" are distinguished from innovation rasters, and "developer surface area" is directly proportional to number of donuts and Pepsis they consume.
 
365 Subscription Options

So on the Microsoft Office 365 Comparison page it shows "Small Business, Small Business Premium and Midsize Business". The most cost effective being the "Small Business" at $60.00 per year. Will there be a personal use option for $2-3.00 a month for Home Users?


I have to use excel because certain people in my line of work are unwilling to switch to Numbers just because its not Excel. Stupid thought process, I know. Numbers is more than capable of handling what we need in a spreadsheet...
 
All three apps will be free downloads and will include viewing and presenting capabilities free of charge. Users wishing to edit or create documents with the apps will need an Office 365 subscription.

Sooooooo in terms of Word, isn't this the same thing as converting a Word document as a PDF to view? :confused: I don't use PowerPoint all that often, so I would assume playing a slideshow is a welcomed feature that couldn't be done for years before?
 
Sooooooo in terms of Word, isn't this the same thing as converting a Word document as a PDF to view? :confused: I don't use PowerPoint all that often, so I would assume playing a slideshow is a welcomed feature that couldn't be done for years before?

Keynote opens PowerPoint files, so it could be done before.
 
Only Enterprise/Corporates will buy this. For everyone else it'll still be iWork.

And that's fine. Microsoft makes most of their money from enterprise anyway.

Did average consumers really pay for Office?

I can't imagine that moms, dads, grandmas and grandpas were really bothered by the Office 365 subscription.

You're right... corporate and enterprise will be buying Office... just like they always have.
 
While it's about time they finally released their office apps for the ipad. I feel it's a bit to late. I've been using pages for so long now, to me this would seem like a big step back.. Just my opinion
 
There is no way in hell I'm paying $10/month to keep these apps useful on iOS devices.
 
Is this confirmed somewhere?

I am hoping this is the case...

Also, why all the hate behind software rental? Is it just a visceral hatred without looking at the pros and cons? When I looked at 365, the cost involved was an order of magnitude below what I would have had to pay outright - it was a no-brainer.

The hatred comes from the repeated screwing over of people with software subscriptions, from activation errors to slower integration of new features/fixes (hello to you Adobe) to just being nickeled and dimed to death by nearly every company who wants a constant revenue stream instead of creating compelling versions of their products to buy.

Also, for single instillations, it's way more expensive if you're not interested in upgrading constantly. A single Home and Student license (2013) costs $139, and a single Home and Business is $219. As a self employed person who really only uses 1-2 computers, it's a no brainer to not pay $99 a year over 7 years (roughly my typical replacement time) and to just buy $139 x 2 (or the 3pac in the past for a similar price) since I really just need Word and Excel, with a smattering of Power Point.

Sadly it also makes these apps worthless for me, $700 over 7 years compared to $280 doesn't make it worthwhile for me to use them on my iPad when traveling from site to site, not to mention that over the past few years I've adapted to using them less and less anyway. I'd be more then happy to pay a reasonable, single price for them (even if that app only worked with the current version and a new one came out a few years later) since that's most effective for my sole proprietor business model, but that's not available and likely won't ever be.
 
That's going to cause a LOT of bad reviews (and complaints here). Why?
  1. "Hey, this app won't let me edit!"
  2. Many people aren't going to even know/understand what Office 365 is!
  3. Then they're going to figure out the price.

And this is even what most rumors expected them to do...

Gary

Yep, that's right. The problem is MS is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The only way to truly milk their Office monopoly is to tie this app into Office 365. But that approach will turn off a lot of users. People won't pay the prices they used to pay for productivity apps given the plethora of free alternatives now.
 
University pricing

FWIW, if you're at a university, the Office 365 subscription is $20/yr ($80 for a 4 year subscription). That's actually quite reasonable, and it allows for one install on the iPad and another on the desktop. I definitely wouldn't pay $100/yr for a normal 365 subscription.
 
Oh, that's just great... I could view & share documents for free since the beginning!

This is 100% useless, with a subscription required.

Exactly, 100 dlls. subscription to edit a document, that's crazy for an ipad app.

Plus, you would need to download 700+ mb just to view documents if you want all three apps, when you can download Quickoffice for free and only about 60mb and you can edit documents.
 
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I simply no longer use Office enough to pay for it. For my regular, home needs, Google Docs is just fine.

At my job, Office is still king though, and that's the only time I actually use it. Though I'm trying to convince my IT to get rid of Office all together.

Yes, Microsoft, your users have moved on. Eventually, you'll have to make this suite completely free.
 
I wonder if Apple will get a 30% cut of the subscriptions or was Microsoft successful in getting an exception.
 
Everyone should download them once so you can review and give them one star for being useless, then MS might get the message and release a pay once option. Worth a go.....
 
Hm... All three are read-only without an Office 365 subscription.
This isn't really usful without a 365 subscription.
(Well, I'm talking about Word and Excel... I don't know about Powerpoint.)
 
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