“Microsoft is planning a version of its Office business app for the iPad,” Matt Hickey reports for The Daily.
“According to sources, the tech giant is actively working on adapting its popular software suite for Apple’s tablet,” Hickey reports. “With the iPad making up over 80 percent of the tablet market and millions of people worldwide using Office, that could mean big bucks for the tech giant based in Redmond, Wash.”
Hickey reports, “Microsoft already has numerous popular — and some not so popular — apps available for the iPad. They include Bing, MSN Onit and MSN OnPoint. There are even more available for iPhone, including Microsoft Tag, Windows Live Messenger and Wonderwall.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Office? How quaint. We’ve been using Pages, Numbers, and Keynote on our Macs – and, of course, iPads – for so long now, we’d forgotten Office even existed. Lucky us! Thanks, Daily, for the ugly reminder.
For the great unwashed, though, just this rumor alone will sell even more iPads. As with their new Macs, they can figure out on their own time that they don’t need Office for iPad. The “must-have” myth is powerful for the uninitiated.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K. for the heads up.]
Not interested, but a rare smart move by Microsoft.
Lets see now, a crippled PoS that will lack any useful features the Win7 version will get. It will keep MS relevant, as Enterprise iOS users will have it rammed down their throats by their IT departments. Thereby reinforcing the misconception that you need MS Office.
Look at the long line of crippleware that MS has released for the Mac over the past 10 years for a view of how this will turn out.
No way will it be a crippled POS! It’ll be a typical M$ bloatware POS that’ll come in at around 4GB. And it’ll have a more obfuscated version of that POS “Ribbon” too! I can’t wait!
1
If MS doesn’t do that there will be a whole generation of people who learn to use alternative and realize that don’t need Word or the other products they have. That is MS’s foundation and will kill them once they see the truth. Not that I’m a MS fan or could care less but how could you run a billion dollar company and not see that.
May Balmy be their captain until the ship sinks.
Yeah rare smart move by ms.
They would even be smarter by selling it cheaper than pages etc… Or giving it away for awhile.
One of these days I should grab pages for iOS.
Don’t hold your breath! Whatever Microsoft releases as “Office for iPad” will be a crippled bloated mess. I moved past Office years ago…you’d be wise to do the same.
iPhone… 2007-8 iPad nearly 2 years… Late to the party, and they’re trying to find Rohypnol like drug to spike the punch with.
Wolf in an ill-fitting lambs costume.
I just “sold” a new iPad to some relatives at Thanksgiving (they went and bought one on Black Friday). They asked me about getting Office for the iPad and I told them Microsoft doesn’t make it, so they’d have to use Pages and Numbers. It struck me as really stupid on Microsoft’s part, because they just lost a customer who will soon figure out they can live without Office and then Microsoft will never see them back!
And I for one welcome our new platform overlords…
also Photosynth, which is amazingly the best app for the iPhone. hard to believe that M$oft made such a good app for the iPhone….
$5 a module, I’m in.
If they port over the core of VBA they’ll have a very compelling app for at least the enterprise.
Without that it will be considered crippled by the hardcore office users.
the End is near.
Great for Apple. A lot of companies still use Office and will buy more iPads once it’s on the iPad as well. No matter that it’s a mess and the most ugly software in the world.
Microsoft should offer some of their default fonts for sale on the apple store to make it easier to export files between pages and the win world.
I certainly don’t want to buy office to to make use of their default font…
Great for Apple indeed! Another reason IT doufuses will trot out to keep Apple out of enterprise will be deleted.
I don’t need Office for my iPad when I have Pages, Number and Presentation already installed.
Keynote, not Presentation.
This is great!! Pages and Numbers are NOT even close to being comparable to Office. Depending on the features MS decides to port, this will be a major boon to iOS in the business community. Pages and Numbers are pretty…but lack the necessary features to be a serious contender for folks involved in sharing business documents. I know this is heresy on this forum. But, try to do the most basic of things in Pages like a numbered list with subpoints. DocsToGo can do it. But not Pages. There is not a single Word or Numbers document that I open in Pages/Numbers that does not generate some sort of error message. Oh…yes, I own both products on Mac and iPad. Again, pretty…but not capable.
MDN has also made numerous claims that Pixelmator is the equivalent of Photoshop. Yet another misguiding statement.
+1
Apple’s pages is minor leagues compared to Word.
I agree completely, and I love Mac. But as a lawyer, it is a non-starter to rely on Pages and Numbers. I have to share files with other lawyers every day and to do so I’d have to convert and maintain a double version of every file in both P&N and Word and Excel format. When time is money, that is a major waste. Sorry, until P&N can save in W&E formats, I’m sticking with what the vast majority of the legal world uses.
Agreed, Rick, a missing plank in iPad is a program that can open, edit and save .docx and .xlsx files without screwing up the formatting. Much as I like the unfussy P&N way of creating and editing documents, they’re useless in a collaborative environment. [Indeed, I would have bought an iPad, instead of this here MB Air (much as I love its power, speed and expensive thin form), for my portable machine if it had been able to integrate with the real world of MS Office.]
And when will Apple add a grammar checker to Pages?
The checker in Word isn’t perfect – the English language is too complex – but it usually catches by stupid mistakes & types.
This technology has been around since the 80s. Granted, the 80s versions weren’t all that good, but they get better every year.
I use Numbers almost exclusively now, there’s just some historical stuff that remains in Excel format.
But I do find Numbers frustrating at times because of the syntax it wants me to use for formula, even though on paper the syntax is fine, Numbers wants it only in a certain order. It really needs to have a bit of intelligence built in to at least identify what I’m trying to calculate – “You want to add these things to those things, multiply by that and then subtract this? Well this bit goes here, that there and the brackets around this” rather than returning a meaningless “syntax error” message. Urgh!
Personally, I would love to see NeoOffice ported to the iPad (and even iPhone). Does pretty much what M$ Office does and it’s free…
Smart move for a change. By offering Office for iPad but not for Android, they’ll hurt Android and Google. More chances for them to pick up the few marketshare crumbs left over by Apple.
Pages is due a refresh anytime now. And I’m not sure Office can truly run as it would like on an iPad. It will probably be a big fat disappointment.
If they do, I hope they look at the forums. There are several missing pieces that Pages needs to add to make it a serious contender. Outline lists is one of them. But, there are lots more. Apple, read the Forums.
Numbers is probably too far gone to make it a serious replacement for Excel. Apple should buy Mariner Calc or something else, update it to look great and relaunch. Better yet, take NeoOffice and “Apple-ize” it. Neo has been in the wild for years and is rock solid with millions of users. Reward the programmers who have provided this gem to the masses by buying them out and take Neo to the next level.
Microsoft needs Office in iPad more than Apple needs Office for iPad. Hey, Sculley, this is how it should of happened.
I’m not sure I agree with you on this. But, it will be a win-win for both and a huge win for the consumer. Now, if Intuit would get off their dead-asses and put out a totally 100% compatible version of Quickbooks for Mac with all of the same features, Windows would be a distant memory for me.
+ 1000
I would give Excel for iPad a chance. Not expecting much though.
Good job geniuses… you figured out that putting your software on a platform with 250MM users is a “DUURRR GOOD IDEA!”…
Now try this on for size… Make each app $10, and you’ll have a shot at competing against Pages, Numbers and Keynote. I’m assuming it’ll take you 3 versions to make a good version. 😉
One thing about Numbers:
It’s slow as a snail stuck on a sticky bun.
I’ve experienced running old Excel in Rosetta in CIRCLES around
Numbers. It’s all Ooooh look at those pretty colors when it’s… EMPTY, but try and add a full sheet of formulas and it crawls to a halt.
Numbers is an immature toy.
I am a little surprised nobody has mentioned this, but if Microsoft goes through with this it will be the end of them. Microsoft stays in business by selling Office for $350 or so. NO ONE is going to pay $350 for an app on their iPad. They will have to drop the price to $50 or less to gain any traction. Once the price for the iPad is $50, how will anyone justify paying $350 for Office on their PC/Mac. This will destroy their margin on their cash cow.
However, they have little choice. They can continue riding the PC wave and $350 Office to the end, or they can attempt to adapt to a new world with no new products and smaller margins.
Maybe. But, MSO is entrenched in the business channel. No one can dislodge them unless they offer 100% compatibility and additional features. What is the selling proposition for a new entry in the category. Looks pretty? That will not cut it.
So, MSO will continue to dominate the desktop/laptop business channel at whatever reasonable price per unit they choose and MSO for tablets will be totally incremental up to $100. Yes, people will pay that much for it.
I think that Office on the iPad could be a reason why Apple hasn’t updated iWorks in more than 4 years (jan 6, 2009) maybe MS & Apple have come to some sort of agreement.
But if this is not the case, then why hasn’t Apple updated iWorks? specially Numbers? which by most accounts is the least developed program of the suite.