MS is changing, and make no mistake, this has started with Ballmer. If you watch(ed) the press conf, it's quite apparent. App store for Android, Office for iPad, AD for Azure.. quite nice stuff, that's what we expect from a software giant: just release stuff for everything, everywhere, and make things be able to work with each other nicely.<p>Good to see that, competition is always good for the users, and Apple, Google and MS all seem to be quite strong on their fields (although Google is the most fashionable nowadays).
I wonder if they aren't a little late on this. I assume that I'm not the only one that found out I can get along just fine without Office on an iPad (or in my own personal case, get along just fine without Office at all). If the free Pages/Keynote/Numbers doesn't do it, I probably need a "real" computer anyway.<p>That was always the real danger I saw for Microsoft as they delayed supporting iOS. Folks buy the devices anyway, despite their lack of Office. Then folks find out that they can do what they want to do despite that lack of Office. Maybe they've been using it by default, not because they really need it. Then Microsoft comes out with Office for iOS and there's a collective shrug and a "meh".
The pricing structure is interesting: Free to view, requires an expensive Office 365 subscription to edit.<p>Seems like they're missing an opportunity to drive adoption of Office as an online platform. Why would I want to publish using Office instead of Google Docs when I can't assume that people I send the Office doc to will be able to edit it? Sure, Office is better, but not better enough to overcome that.<p>If it was free to edit, but $$$ to publish, Office 365 would be much more compelling. Especially since the situation w/r/t mobile looks much better than Google Docs.<p>Edit: My point here is about network effects, not whether the subscription is worth it. Office previously benefited from them, but it's vulnerable as a cloud platform given the free alternatives from Google and even Apple.
Some comments here refer the potencially high cost of the membership for Office 365. It seems like there will be a new plan for $7/m ($70/y) supporting 2 devices[1]. Like the previous plan, it also seems to include 1h of Skype calls.<p>[1] <a href="http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/13/announcing-office-365-personal-a-new-way-to-access-office-365/" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/13/announcing-office-365-per...</a>
Excel and PowerPoint are live already.
Excel: <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for-ipad/id586683407?mt=8" rel="nofollow">https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for-ipad/id5...</a><p>PowerPoint: <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-powerpoint-for-ipad/id586449534?mt=8" rel="nofollow">https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-powerpoint-for-ipa...</a>
Before anybody thinks this is weird, or unusual. Microsoft has quite often been more pragmatic about the platform offerings for their office suite than elsewhere. After all, Office exists and has existed on Apple products for a very long time. It's more unusual that it <i>hasn't</i> been on the iProducts than anything.
A review comparing the Apple apps (native and cloud), MSFT Office (native and cloud), and Google Docs compare would be interesting. Specifically usability (touch as well as external keyboard attached), on and offline modes.<p>Playing up the ribbon in the presentation? Curious as ribbon really has triggered a love it or hate it reaction.
It's great to see Office on iPad - hopefully it'll encourage Google to improve their terrible Drive app.<p>Our company moved entirely to Google Docs about 5 years ago. Being sent a Word file is like being handed a CD ROM - a brief moment for a 'Oh, one of those' mental gear change and a few minutes rummaging in the dead tech box for an external drive. Or in Office's case something that can reliably parse the file
Finally. Yes, there are alternatives to Microsoft Office for the iPad, but make no mistake, none of them even come close to that of Microsoft Office. I just downloaded Word and Excel, couldn't find a flaw in either of them. The subscription part for editing sucks, but subscriptions are fairly cheap.<p>We are witnessing a new Microsoft that began when new CEO Satya Nadella took the helm. This is his first of many acts to turn the company around, instead of the previous closed door approach Balmer preferred.<p>It's good to see Satya doesn't appear to be full brainwashed by the Microsoft cool-aid. This isn't 1998, Windows is no longer the dominant platform and it makes sense to open up your products to other platforms, especially given Microsoft's failure to break ground in the mobile market.<p>Now all Satya needs to do is bring back the start menu in Windows 9, get rid of that horrid Metro tile interface for non touch devices (or at the very least give users the option of the new Metro interface or classic desktop) and I'll be ecstatic.
As a long time MS customer their pricing strategies and product segmentation still bother the heck out of me. I get it, but I don't. I wish they'd flatten the offering to one OS and one Office suite and be done with it. Here's what's happening with the tablet versions of Office:<p><pre><code> A qualifying Office 365 subscription is required to edit and create documents.
Qualifying plans include:
Office 365 Home
$99.99 PER YEAR
Office 365 Small Business Premium
$150.00 per user per year
Office 365 Midsize Business
$180.00 per user per year
Office 365 E3 and E4 (Enterprise and Government)
$264.00 per user per year
Office 365 Education A3 and A4
Students: $36.00 per user per year
Teachers: $72.00 per user per year
Office 365 Pro Plus
$?????
Office 365 University
Same as educational license?
</code></pre>
Not sure how to think about this. If I had to pay for my Office 2003 and 2007 Office Pro legal licenses every year it'd amount to a large pile of money. I don't have any issues licensing software at all. You could buy a couple of top of the line German cars with the various licenses for engineering and office software we have.<p>That said, monthly subscriptions I avoid like the plague. Why? All is fine while business is good. When things aren't great subscriptions bleed much-needed capital. If cancelling your subscriptions means taking away such things as Office and email you are screwed and have to take money from some other part of the business to keep them going.<p>That's why I've always run our own email servers and always purchased licenses of software like Office Pro. We don't have to update the software every year. When things are good --and if it makes sense-- you upgrade. During lean times you have the option to not spend any money on upgrades and still have full usage of your software. Having experienced this a couple of times over the years I don't like the idea of any mission critical service being tied to a monthly per-user licence, it's a bad idea.<p>Beyond that, I wish MS would stop this nonsense of having so many layers to their products. One Windows and one Office, none of this "Home", "Home Premium", "Pro", "Pro Plus", "Really Really Pro Premium Plus", etc.
It goes to show a lot about the situation in Microsoft that they didn't manage to ship this last year for Surface RT, where it might have done the platform a lot of good.
I think that it is cool for Microsoft to release Office 360 for OS X and iPad.<p>I do a lot of writing (I am pretty much addicted to writing books). I use my iPad for lots of casual writing using a good text editor and markdown files in Dropbox (target is leanpub.com). For some writing I like having Pages on both iOS and OS X with iCloud storage.<p>If Office 360 ends up being a compelling product for iPad and my MacBook Air, then the $99/year is a no-brainer decision.
Looks like the non-tablet iPhone/Android phone versions of Office Mobile have gone free to use as well, forgoing the previous requirement of an active Office 365 subscription:<p><a href="http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/27/announcing-the-office-you-love-now-on-the-ipad/" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/27/announcing-the-office-you...</a>
While we're talking about Microsoft, it strikes me that of the big players in 2014, Microsoft are the most diversified, even if they're no longer in the lead in most areas. Will that diversification (Office, Windows, Enterprise, Azure, XBox, Phones) give them more longevity? Or are they really in danger of fading into insignificance?
I'm wondering what would happen if, without paying for the office 365 subscription, I try to edit a document stored in the cloud. Will it open a Safari tab with the free office.com online Word/Excel/Powerpoint ?<p>In other words : Is there an "Open with Word Online" button for non office 365 subscribers?
I wonder if Apple gets a cut of the subscription pricing.<p>I also bet any other company would not get away with a model like that. Apple requires that you make payments through their AppStore or in-app Payment systems so it can collect its cut. Good luck trying to publishing something with the same model on the App Store.
If it means we will have an actual word processor on iOS, all the better.<p>I for one am deeply disappointed with the direction Apple has taken with iWork.<p>Not least of which is the (a) removal of features and (b) incompatibility with recent versions of their own software [this has rendered large portions of my documents unreadable]
It is with a certain amount of amusement that I note that this version of office (which looks really cool) is significantly more optimized for touch than the version of office that I have for my MS Surface. That is some what disappointing.
$119 (in Australia, at least) is too much for me to try editing capabilities. How about you keep the price but only prevent me from saving? I need to know how it feels editing the documents before I commit to such price.
Wow. Office for iPad actually looks pretty great. This is great news for Apple and the Windows users out there who didn't want to use iPad for lack of official MS Office products.
Why does Microsoft offer not only the single apps but also one app with all single apps included? That seems to be rather unusual for iOS apps.<p>As a side note, App Store search is still lacking: Looking for 'microsoft office' did not result in a single hit related to actual apps from Microsoft. Googling for App Store links to the four new apps was easier in the end …
What would be nice if you can read and comment/highlight for free and edit for pay. I suspect one typical use case is to have someone send around a doc to solicit comments and incorporate them subsequent. In fact, this model kind of enforces that flow so you don't have multiple people editing it and forking the original.
They've also started using open-source technologies like Node.js and javascript (must be typescript).<p>Microsoft is finally adopting open source with open arms.<p>source: <a href="http://inessential.com/2014/02/04/azure_takes_over" rel="nofollow">http://inessential.com/2014/02/04/azure_takes_over</a>
To me, there needs to be a step change in information input for the Office Suite to be something I'd use on an iPad. Word processing and speadsheet manipulation are so text intensive. Interested to try it out though.
I was really hoping the "developers" portion would announce a Xamarin acquisition. Maybe at BUILD, but curiously as this talk was going on I got an email from Xamarin telling me to visit them at BUILD.
Microsoft releases Office for iPad just looks like that Nintendo publishes Super Mario Bros on Xbox!<p>So, are they going to discard Windows (|phone|tablet|...) platform and become a pure third-party? It reminds me of Sega.
The issue I find is that spreadsheets are really unpleasant to work with on a tablet (or any touch display). Given that, things like QuickOffice or similar work mostly just fine for viewing.
Question - does the equation editor work in Word? When viewing Word docs on iOS previously I could only see about 70% of my mechanical engineering lab reports without it.
When will Microsoft launch it's own iPad (or a product as good as it). "Launching something for concurrents' successful platform". That's weird.
The Microsoft Office Apps don't integrate well with other iOS apps. There's no open-in in other apps and no support for AirPrint or other printing options.
i wonder if it will keep getting regular updates and support too -- what product cycle will it be on? will it have clippy -- the office assistant? so many questions.
This looks very well done. This is exciting. Honestly, I've almost entirely transitioned from Office to Google Docs. I could see this pulling me back in.
They missed the competition for IE <i>completely</i> and were way too late with IE7. They missed the competition from the mobile world and dragged their feet a bit with WP7. They're not going to lose Office too, which is their biggest cash-cow. Without Office, entire corporations will no longer see Microsoft as a "must-have" company.<p>So yeah, iPad.
Finally they've accepted the fact that they need to optimize to apple products, the Gates mentality has been blocking innovation in this area and this might be the breakthrough !