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Microsoft Office for iPad Coming 'Sooner Than Most Think'

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Apr 12, 2001
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Microsoft has been rumored for a number of years to be bringing its Office productivity suite to the iPad, and according to a new report from ZDNet, it is coming "sooner than most think." Sources have indicated to ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley that Office for iPad may even arrive before the "touch first" Windows version that had been reported to be leading the way.
But I hear Ballmer and the senior leaders of the company may have had a change of heart towards the end of last year. According to one of my contacts, Ballmer OK'd the suggestion by the Office team that they'd bring Office for iPad to market as soon as it was ready, even though that would likely mean before the Windows 8 version. I'm hearing that new date for Office for iPad is some time in the first half of calendar 2014. (My sources last summer were hearing Office for iPad wouldn't debut until Fall 2014.)
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Foley notes that it is still unclear in exactly what form Office for iPad will arrive, but it will presumably involve Microsoft's Office 365 subscription service and potentially integrate with the company's OneDrive cloud storage. The company currently offers an iPhone app that offers viewing and limited editing capabilities, with the available free of charge but requiring an Office 365 subscription.

Article Link: Microsoft Office for iPad Coming 'Sooner Than Most Think'
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/02/14/office-ipad-soon/
Is it coming sooner than "I don't think about it at all"? That's pretty fast! :p
 
Sooner than most think? But not all.

Lets see if it's a subscription .. it will have to compete with things that are not, and have a lot less restrictions.
 
iWork for iPad. Been here. Use it. Can convert it to word thru iCloud if you really need to.
 
more like too late. i feel lije ive been reading about it for over 2 years

i wouldnt mind Office 2014 for the Mac tho
 
Well I figured it was never coming to iPad so that consumers would be forced to buy Surface if they wanted Office, so sooner than I think is not necessarily that soon.
 
If you believe the talk, Office has been 'just about to be released' for months. it's actually about to tie with the Real Apple TV for the most 'delays'
 
"Coming sooner than most people think"

"Has been rumored for a number of years"

Well okay then
 
Office is a huge card in Microsofts hand. Releasing Office for iPad is going to hurt them. One less reason to buy a surface.
 
Too late, I switched to iWork 6 years ago. The only useful part is Excel, which isn't useful on an iPad. Then again, the iPad itself isn't very useful either.

If it's integrated with OneDrive, I guess it's also officially worse than Office '98.
 
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iWork works like a champ, sorry MS, too little too late. Did I mention its free? If you don't like living inside the walled garden there is always Google Docs. By Apple and Google giving their work suites away for free, they are really torpedoing MS. I'll be interested to see if this launches with a subscription. LOL If it does. Their market will be all the people that can only use Excel.
 
Yelmurc said:
Office is a huge card in Microsofts hand. Releasing Office for iPad is going to hurt them. One less reason to buy a surface.
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Having your competition use other software will hurt them as well.

iPad sales > Surface sales.

If only 1% of iPad users bought Office it would probably take 98% of Surface users to equal it.
 
OGDK said:
Too late, I switched to iWork 6 years ago. The only useful part is Excel, which isn't useful on an iPad. Then again, the iPad itself isn't very useful either.
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iWork is fine for 90% of what I do. Once Numbers catches up to Excel in some functionality, I wouldn't need office at all.
 
Im sure it will arrive.With Microsofts typical lack of quality.Crashing, bugs, locking up.Why anyone buys anything from them I find mind boggling.
 
unplugme71 said:
iWork is fine for 90% of what I do. Once Numbers catches up to Excel in some functionality, I wouldn't need office at all.
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Same. I'm shocked at how poorly Numbers handles graphs. It's pretty much unusable if I want a single graph.
 
umm, I don't get it..

I purchased an iPad Air at Christmas for the family to use and
I just can't stand using that silly keyboard for typing, maybe it's just me.

It's great for using apps etc, but it'll never replace my MacBook Pro.
 
If this showed up 2 years ago when the Surface debuted, then I would have forked over the money in a heartbeat.

I have gotten so comfortable with using iWork for everything now that I just cannot see spending the money.

Too little. Too late.

Microsoft should have embraced iOS when iPad debuted in order to keep Office relevant to everyone. They have already lost many users because of dragging their feet.

Office for Surface was a joke. It launched desktop mode and it thought "touch optimized" meant bigger icons with more space. The entire ribbon interface is unfriendly on a tablet. More swipes and gestures and less buttons and menus. The fact that they acknowledge that they still don't have a touch-optimized version of Office only validates my impression of the highly-touted Office for Surface.

I just wish Microsoft would have seen that it was foolish to sacrifice Office at the altar of Windows and realized that Office was the best product to focus on in the Post-PC era. Betting everything on a new operating system that you bolt on to the old operating system is foolish. In fact, its the reason why Windows takes up so much of the storage space on mobile devices -- the OS and apps like Office are still dependent on a bloated set of DLLs designed for the desktop world. The day the iPad was announced, Microsoft should have invested in recreating Office from the ground up for mobile (for iOS as well as an planned successor for Windows).
 
luv2seaters said:
Im sure it will arrive.With Microsofts typical lack of quality.Crashing, bugs, locking up.Why anyone buys anything from them I find mind boggling.
Click to expand...

Ah so just like the current iterations of Apple's most recent products!
 
Microsoft needs to focus on making software for ALL operating systems not just for Windows. MS they make software that's what they are supposed to do...

I remember when they had Office for Mac.
 
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