“So the news came this week that Microsoft’s stock has ticked up,” Gene Steinberg writes for The Tech Night Owl. “According to the rumor mill, Nadella will use his first major press meeting to announce the impending arrival of Office for the iPad.Microsoft has been hoping and dreaming that customers will be lining up to buy Surface tablets, and similar gear from other PC OEMs, because they alone offer a full Office suite on a mobile platform. But people aren’t lining up. It doesn’t seem that having Office has helped sell a Surface, nor has the lack of Office hurt sales of the iPad.”
“Indeed, iPad users have choices. Number one with a bullet is Apple’s own iWork suite, which is free with the purchase of a new Mac, iPad or iPhone, and updates are free with existing gear if you own the previous version. Microsoft may find it advantageous to make OneNote free, but making Office free for iOS would put a stake in the heart of a huge potential income stream,” Steinberg writes. “and that’s nothing to sneeze at. Despite the alternatives, there is still a hefty customer base of Office users, and if Microsoft does a decent job at delivering the iPad version, and keeps it affordable — though it’ll probably require an Office 365 subscription — it could chalk up high sales.”
Steinberg writes, “Sure, I suppose it is possible that time has really passed Microsoft by. If they cannot succeed with an iPad version of Office, it would indeed raise question marks about the company’s ongoing strategy, such as it is.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: No, we don’t need Microsoft or their shiteous bloatware shackled to endless subscriptions.
Buh-bye, Borg.
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MS needs to accept that where Office works and where it is likely to continue to work is in corporate america.
Chasing the iPad, phones and other tablets is a waste of resources cause Office is not needed in these areas.
Just Excel
We’ll get endless 1 star ratings but I agree. I have Numbers but its not as nice to use as Excel. Numbers is not better or even as good as excel so its not going to replace it in 99% of business that use Excel.
In years to come Office will be the #1 product for MS as windows dies a very slow death.
If my work depended on a Microsoft product I’d look for alternate employment.
The uses I have seen involving Excel can be easily accomplished with a custom database. A huge benefitt is no flat files and you end up with relational data. FileMaker Pro or another DB will do to accomplish the replacement of those stubborn laggards of the old 90’s mindset that plow toward Excel at every opportunity.
The real issue is a spreadsheet app on a tablet. To use one you need a large screen to easily look at it for a long time. A keyboard and mouse/trackpad; there is a lot of data entry in a lot of different areas. A tablet is not designed for this. Tablets are for doing jobs that laptops can’t do, not replace them. For people who’s job requires a hard core, professional spreadsheet Excel on Windows on a desktop is the best tool. Most people don’t have that job. If Microsoft can’t get people to use Excel on a Surface, than why the hell do they think they can on an iPad
I know an idiot who bought a Surface as a PC replacement. Mostly for Office? He needs to evolve….
Or realize what a tablet is for. Office is not one of them.
Who is this Microsoft I keep hearing about?
da’ debble.
Only forced to install it at work. Editors want it.
In a word: No.
HELL NO.
I would do Office for IPad, only WITHOUT a subscription.
Screw all companies who foist such nonsense.
The only people I can see buying Office for iPad are people who use their iPads at work, at a company that uses Office for everything. I can’t see anyone buying this unless they’re already heavily invested into Office.
——RM
If MS’s Office helps Apple share upwards, why not?.
good point
Unfortunately, Microsoft has a tendency to leave Office features out of their Mac versions. Look at the version of OneNote they just released for OS X. I have read a few articles pointing out missing features from the Windows counterpart. I seriously doubt Microsoft is going to release a monumental product for iOS that compares to the Windows or even OS X version. iOS users will be given a stripped down version that does basic editing and opens the proprietary file formats natively. I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt I am. Prove me wrong Microsoft (or don’t; I really don’t plan to use it). iWork has been amazingly designed to work with touch in iOS. I really am blown away by what you can do on an iPad with iWork for iOS. I don’t think Microsoft can come close to that.
I use iWorks to open and edit Office documents. It’s worked well so far. It used to be that corporate people were more picky about formatting. Now it seems that even different versions of Office mangle Office documents so if iWorks when working with Office documents is not perfect it makes little difference.
If a headline ends with a question mark, the answer is no.
The mark of the end of The Stone Age of Computing:
When Microsoft is insignificant, unnecessary and ignored.
I’m already there. It’s great here in the future!
The vast majority of MS Word and Excel docs are just one or two pages/sheets. You don’t need a mega spreadsheet to do those jobs.
The only reason I used them is do view formatting natively while doing an edit, but only when forced to do so.
I don’t need office with an iWork Suite!
What’s the big deal? if it makes your work flow better, why not? Vs Adobe or any other product. What a silly badge of honor. I have an office with Office 365 @99/year for 5 licenses, thats $20 each.. for the most powerful universal office suite going. EVERYTHING Syncs. my phone, messages, email, texts, calendars, etc. In May I hear the 2014 version comes out with Ipad and Iphone direct support. It is APPLE fault for not getting into enterprise. if people can open your friggin word docs, perhaps more macs get into corporate offices. Eh? So what does Apple do? dumb down their Pages, and kills their user base.
It wasnt microsoft that messed up Final Cut Pro X…