Yeah good luck with working with office documents in a business or corporate setting with iWork and the broken compatibilities galore. Good luck also with iWork on the mac, software that's close to become legacy since apple hasnt updated in ages... Btw you wouldn't be getting it with your iPad, windows on arm would get it and maybe sometime much latter the iPad.
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Microsoft Office for iOS and Android Arriving in November?
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Yeah good luck with working with office documents in a business or corporate setting with iWork and the broken compatibilities galore. Good luck also with iWork on the mac, software that's close to become legacy since apple hasnt updated in ages... Btw you wouldn't be getting it with your iPad, windows on arm would get it and maybe sometime much latter the iPad.
No good luck is required. I've been using iWork since 2008 without any compatibility problems, and it's made my work a lot easier
Office for iOS? **** yeah!! I can't wait for this, i'm not buying iWork if Office for iOS is good and stable!
No matter what fanboys say, Office > iWork (except Keynote).
No matter what fanboys say, Office > iWork (except Keynote).
While this is basically true, I'm convinced that the developers working at the MacBU are very poorly skilled. I can't shake the memory of them taking years to fix Office to be able to work with Spaces. That was such a big headache. Office also still takes forever to open on a high end MBP.
I used to be a HUGE MS Office fan because of the familiarity, but I have slowly began to use iWorks and I find on both my MacBook and iPad iWork is better than Office. That is atleast for my Mac as I have yet to experience it yet
MSFT is a company. They will (try to) make decisions that have (the most) positive impact on their bottom-line.
Bill missed nothing; as noted, the decision to support Apple was correct for more reason than one. You on the other hand seems to have missed it all.
It is certainly profitable, and more than that, it helps maintain MSFT's dominant position in enterprise (office) software. I never argued against Office for Mac. My point was that Office for Mac and Office for iOS - from a business point of view - are two completely different animals. The value of doing always have to be balanced with the value of not doing (Economy 101).
Once more: Office for Mac and Office for iOS are two completely different situations, necessitating completely different strategic approaches. Are there tangents? Certainly, but we have to remember that what is at stake here is not only the dominant position of Office, but also the dominant position of Windows. It goes without saying that MSFT is better off if they succeed to maintain both. Consequently, the choice cannot be reduced to number of licenses of Office sold.
Put short: Office is a strategic asset. The route they take with regards to Office for iOS has significant impact on MSFT's ability to leverage that asset in other markets (e.g. Windows). Just looking at one column (i.e. Office revenue) thus completely misses the larger picture (i.e. MSFT revenue).
How hard could it possibly be to get?
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So what should they do? Without having the numbers, i really only see two scenarios as likely - all depending on how much they are willing to wage on being successful with Windows 8 (and more specifically, Windows on ARM).
One option is to ditch iPad all together, trying to use the gravity around Office to make people opt for W8-based tablets. This is the riskier of the two, as failure essentially opens up room for outside competition, in turn threatening Office dominant position on all platforms and form-factors.
The other option is to use Office as a pawn in price competition between platforms (W8 v. iOS). For example, MSFT could charge steeply on iOS, while subsidizing on W8 to make the latter look like the better choice. If MSFT is content securing their dominant position in enterprise this is somewhat of a Win-win. Enterprises can on the one hand cope with high license costs (even at 199 its not that high, really), and at the same time the added 200 bucks that not standardizing on W8 would incur will draw enterprises toward W8-offerings.
Just selling, and doing so cheaply, only thinking of the bottom-line for Office is a non-option, or at least a very stupid one. Doubt we will see that kind of stupidity from Redmond in the near future. (The exception being arrogance and overall cockiness; an attitude of "we can't lose, regardless". In that scenario they would certainly maximize profits from Office and Office alone. Then again, arrogance and cockiness goes hand in hand with stupidity).
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MS Office Mobile + TOTAL Dropbox integration + Total Dropbox integration and syncing with the desktop flavors of MS Office and I might just dump iWork.
I do much of my document work on my iPad when I am away from a desktop, but Dropbox doesn't work as wonderfully on the iPad as it does on the desktop; iCloud doesn't work as wonderfully on the desktop as it does on the iPad; and I don't see either Apple or Dropbox providing full integration of either of their apps on BOTH the mobile and desktop flavors.
MS has an opportunity to really knock cloud based storage out of the park.
I do much of my document work on my iPad when I am away from a desktop, but Dropbox doesn't work as wonderfully on the iPad as it does on the desktop; iCloud doesn't work as wonderfully on the desktop as it does on the iPad; and I don't see either Apple or Dropbox providing full integration of either of their apps on BOTH the mobile and desktop flavors.
MS has an opportunity to really knock cloud based storage out of the park.
First and foremost they are a maker of an OS, a bad one true but the one used by the most beige boxes sitting on desk tops even though though don't sell the boxes. So although they are a software company and want to sell programs too, their OS and its success is their top priority. Making an iOS version of their top selling program suite would be a brave move it would seem even though I am sure you are right, it would probably make more money for them than any other platform outside of the beige boxes. However, it might also mean the end of any hope of Microsoft getting their mobile OS of the ground. So, on balance they make prefer to wait and see if they can succeed in that market. They can always come back to iOS if it fails. So I expect Office for iOS in few years after they fail with the mobile market and iPad is their only market left for mobile Office.
I don't think any reasonable person can honestly say Windows 7 as well as Windows XP are bad operating systems.
Of course they may be shooting themselves in the foot with Windows 8, at least on the desktop, but to say MSFT is a maker of a bad OS is just not true.
This is all great discussion but no one knows just how complete these iOS versions of Office will be. What will they strip out because these are "mobile versions", or because the processor and RAM can't handle it, or because they want to leave some competitive advantage for Windows 8?
Microsoft has been making mobile versions of Office for some time, and not one of them shows track changes commenting for example. That is reserved solely for the desktop. But that is the #1 critical feature that I and so many others need to make the iPad truly a productivity workhorse.
I'm hopeful but not all that optimistic that iOS Office will contain all the critical features we want.
Microsoft has been making mobile versions of Office for some time, and not one of them shows track changes commenting for example. That is reserved solely for the desktop. But that is the #1 critical feature that I and so many others need to make the iPad truly a productivity workhorse.
I'm hopeful but not all that optimistic that iOS Office will contain all the critical features we want.
I think Microsoft is the last person you should be calling overpriced, especially being on an Apple forum.
Doesn't skydrive take care of that already? From the looks of it the Skydrive team are doing some really neat things (can't say i follow it closely).
Check this video for example (not that its particularly on topic), worth watching (especially towards the end, iirc): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf_Qd0OYyTs
Of course - Microsoft would be stupid if they didn't.
And, since Microsoft isn't stupid, they're working on Apple, Android and Metro versions today from a single source code stream.
I wonder if "November" is when Metro tablets are scheduled to appear, so that Microsoft will will be able to announce Office for Metro+Android+Apple tablets at the same time.
Brilliant.
Do you happen to have a link to where Microsoft bought it from someone else?
Wiki(not a trusted source ) says;
Microsoft originally marketed a spreadsheet program called Multiplan in 1982. Multiplan became very popular on CP/M systems, but on MS-DOS systems it lost popularity to Lotus 1-2-3. Microsoft released the first version of Excel for the Macintosh in 30 September 1985, and the first Windows version was 2.05 (to synchronize with the Macintosh version 2.2) in November 1987.[45] Lotus was slow to bring 1-2-3 to Windows and by 1988 Excel had started to outsell 1-2-3 and helped Microsoft achieve the position of leading PC software developer. This accomplishment, dethroning the king of the software world, solidified Microsoft as a valid competitor and showed its future of developing GUI software. Microsoft pushed its advantage with regular new releases, every two years or so.
No good luck is required. I've been using iWork since 2008 without any compatibility problems, and it's made my work a lot easier
Agreed! I've been using iWork exclusively since 2005 and haven't had any issues integrating my workflow and documents into an all Office world. Sure, I have to take that extra step to export as a PDF or Word Doc when I want to share, but the I get apps that outperform Office in areas that I need.
I would alway say that it depends on the user's need. Office does in fact have far more professional features than iWork depending on the app, but there are a ton on nuances that Pages and Numbers have.
For instance, I could NEVER get Word to recognize bleeds, bleed areas, correct AP style hyphenations, alpha channels, etc. The iWork suite is fantastic if you plan on using a lot of media in your documents.
Now, as a disclaimer, I may not be the brightest mind when it comes to using media in Office. It was just a crap load easier to do in iWork.
I use iWork and my wife uses Office. Her office, no pun intended, is MS based and using iWork isn't an option. She would welcome Office for iOS because we have found printing or formatting issues with all of the current iOS Office clones out there. Having the option to take her iPad instead of her Dell laptop to make a presentation would be a welcome option.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this one of the big promises of Mountain Lion with Documents in the Cloud?
MS never bought Excel, it was DOS they bought the rights to. Excel is a successor to Multiplan- Microsoft's original spreadsheet program.