“The Seattle-based company let slip the possibility of a suite for the new tablet during a demonstration of the brand new Office for Mac 2011, which is scheduled for release in late 2010,” Smith reports. “‘Yeah, it’s something that we’re looking at,’ said Microsoft’s Mike Tedesco, who is the Senior Product Manager for WindowsBU. ‘Obviously the announcement (of the iPad) is really fresh and there’s nothing to announce or nothing that I can talk to you about today.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We don’t need no stinking Office.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “TheMightyFinder” for the heads up.]
Lol why bother if they think it’s going to flop
MDN Magic Word… “couldnt”. As in, their Office suite couldn’t be any cooler or simpler than iWork for iPad.
Vapourware plain and simple!
=:~)
Nobody cares any more, MS.
Isn’t it obvious? That way Microsoft can figure out how to copy the iPad for their own Microsoft Tablet UI.
Say what you will about Office for the iPad, this is still very good news for Apple’s iPad. (as long as it’s better than PhotoShop for the iPhone)
A PowerPoint Viewer at least would be nice since this thing can be hooked up to a projector. I know, I know, Keynotes is better, but my wife frequently does presentation in which she does not have control over the slides or the program they are created in. Being able to use iPad to drive a projector would be nice.
Does anyone know if the Apple remote (new or old) will work on the iPad?
Waaaa! The iPad is too expensive! $500 for the iPad and $400 for the Office suite to go with it! Waaaaa!
Hurray! Now we can have and pass onto Windows users, Word & Excel macro viruses!
In response to ppt viewer. iWork will open power points and also drive a projector using VGA adaptor
Not to say that MS office stinks, it’s just that iWork for the iPad would probably be better.
This shouldn’t be a problem. Just as Apple denied (and will deny again) Opera because it competes against Safari, Apple will deny Microsoft’s Office app because it will compete against the iWork suite of apps. QED
But why, we’ve all ready haveiWorks & Pages!
I’ll pass!
Yeah, Microsoft may be looking into porting Office, but there is no way they would sell them as low as iWork. I could see them selling the suite at $60 because some people will want “the real thing” and be willing to pay for it. No Office is the one reason my wife is no longer looking to buy the iPad. Yes, she knows that iWork will read and write in Office formats, but doesn’t trust it. I’ll show her how it works on my iPad next month and see how long it takes her to change her mind…!
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It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.’ – Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman
Then, there’s Ballmer ‘allowing’ some ‘journalists’ at a MS sponsored event telling them that it’s ‘OK’ for them to be using their MacBook Pros — as long as they have Windows installed onto them.
Microsoft: Make sure to use your Crapple products with our inNOvative software! Sorry, no discount for you MacTards. ‘Cuz you didn’t originally by a WinPC.
@jim
No, I think apple would approve the office suite, as they get 30% of app sales, and at the office suite’s current pricing, apple would make a shitload.
by or buy?
@The Other Steve
If the made photoshop for the ipad and let me use it as a waccom tablet so I could actually see what I was drawing on.. I’d preorder one as soon as possible
I’ve said it before, but iWork on the iPad signals to me that apple are starting to push there office suit into new territory and as there are plenty of people who will use the iPad in conjunction with a windows PC it will introduce iWork to a whole new demographic. So expect to see iWork ported to windows in the near future.
This is actually funny..
Would they price it at 9.97 each for Powerpoint, Excel and Word?
what a crock!!!
This makes sense for MS. It’s another platform just like the Mac, and they know it’s a very viable platform from a market share perspective. To a large extent, the product team doesn’t care if it’s Windows or not… at some level they do (stock options)… but they want their products to succeed everywhere).
It may not be as cooling adapted for the iPad as iWork, but it would help business people who need to author, edit, and export MS Office files. I know iWork will do it… but there’s always translation and subtle compatibility problems. And some people are stuck with having to use Office in their companies.
This would only be good for Apple. First, it would make the iPad more compelling to the business traveler crowd, and, second, it would make iWork look really cool in comparison.
“No! No! A thousand times no!”
M$ shall never sully the screen of my iPad that I’ll be in line to buy as soon as they open the doors.
Sorry, but I can’t imagine the user interface for those three on a touch screen. You know MS won’t update the software, it will just be all the same dialog boxes and buttons for a mouse.
Example: Archos 9, “Windows just doesn’t seem at home when squeezed into this 1.8-pound (0.8-kilogram) slab, with a touch-sensitive screen that is 8.9 inches (22 centimeters) on the diagonal. It’s sluggish, and the controls aren’t adapted to the size of the screen or the fact that there’s no real keyboard or mouse. On-screen keyboards kept popping up in the wrong places, blocking the fields where I wanted to enter text and the buttons I wanted to push. I struggled to hit the little ‘x’ in the corner of the window to close it.”
I rest my case.
I hate MS as much as the rest of you fan boys. However, this can only be good for Apple and the iPad. Face it, most people use MS Office at their workplace and they don’t want to learn a new system or deal with things that could be messed up in the conversion process. For this thing to be successful, it has to be viewed as a replacement for peoples laptop instead of a giant iPod Touch. For that to happen, a lot of people are going to expect to see MS Office on there. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying that until iWork is the standard in the business arena people are going to expect Office.
This is WONDERFUL news!!!
They will be able to strip out all the useless stuff and hone Word down to a usable application. Of course, it will be called Word Pad. Power Point will be called Power Point Flash Cards.
Yes, light and usable. But, where can I put the pen and keyboard?
Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac now with 2011% more crashes.
The talk next year will be that Apple rejected Microsoft Office for iPad. Only later after much complaining from Microsoft and the Windows tech reporters/bloggers will some smart punter will shine the light of truth on Microsoft’s wining that it was because of some major crash bugs in Microsoft’s code.
Another thing, if MS comes to play on the iPad OS then hopefully people will compare for themselves and decide which one is best. I am sure you all know how that will end.
Office is too complicated!!! Bring on iWork Pro once and for all dammit!!!
@ Jim: “This shouldn’t be a problem. Just as Apple denied (and will deny again) Opera because it competes against Safari, Apple will deny Microsoft’s Office app because it will compete against the iWork suite of apps. QED”
Sorry, but Apple isn’t worried about “competition” they’re worried about other applications ruining the design, look and feel of their product’s core set of features.
iWork will compete with every other “office” suite made available on the iPad, just as iBooks will still have to compete with the Classics, Kindle, Stanza, and Iceberg, applications.
Apple wants to make sure the phone, web browser and media player all remain consistent, but I believe for every other built-in application, you can find a replacement on the AppStore.
@Ppt Viewer,
there is a Keynote Remote app for the iPhone. I use it all the time for giving presentations, since it allows me to use the iPhone for my notes ad well as for changing slides.
Since virtually all iPhone apps will run on the iPad unmodified, it should work great.
Microsoft’s quality issues aside, they’d make bucketloads of cash in this market. While no self-respecting Machead will buy Office for iPad, most of the world doesn’t fall into that category. Businesses and average PC users would consider Office essential, mostly out of ignorance, granted. But Apple would be foolish not to push it, because it would move lots of hardware.
I’d consider this good news for my Apple stock.
@ Ppt Viewer,
Keynote can already view PowerPoint slides. You don’t need Office for the iPad.
@Matt,
ummm…no.
Ahhh, the stale scent of Microsoft vaporware promises… oh, wait, no. Ballmer just cut one. Eww.
Love it.
They’re damed if they do. Damned if they don’t.
No thanks, i’ll take an app that actually (i)Works (being the universal virus vector does not count as “working” btw).
Well if they start developing it today it should be ready for the fifth generation iPad when it is launched.
What goes around, comes around. Once MSFT made software for Apple because it ran best on a Mac OS. Today and tomorrow MS will still target software on the Mac.
Google took a page out of history and first provided s/w and services on the Mac, and then look to push its own OS.
You make a good point (ummm…no). I retract my statement, thank you for setting me straight.
Dear MDN
We need a forum for us cool users.
So we can all chat more often.
Thanks again
Anthony
Honestly guys, while it’s fun to poke at MW, it really could do with a simpler version of Office. Like it or not, Office is used in over 95% of all businesses, and is very popular in education, and in home use. Apple dropped the ball years ago by dropping Appleworks, which was cross platform, and dominated in education and small business, as well as in the home. iWork should have been made cross platform as well, and should have included more of what Appleworks had. Because of that Apple lost out in the low end office suite wars.
Unfortunately, iWork is NOT compatible enough to substitute for Office when you need to exchange documents of any kind. That goes for all three programs.
Other than for the simplest of Word documents, Powerpoint presentations, and Excel spreadsheets, iWork misses far too much.
That’s being realistic, and I use them all. Apple seems to show no interest in making the suite more powerful, so as to eliminate Office as being necessary. Maybe someday they will, but that day is not now.
I know some will flame me for being so against the wind here, but that’s the way of it.
Maybe they’ll learn a thing or two on how to write coding that works.
Yeesh – you’d think MS astroturfers would have better things to do than hang out in this thread.
MW: “enough” – no kidding
WHy in the hell would you want MS office on an iPad? The customized version of iWork is the real deal, not some bloated, slow, insecure, overpriced piece of crap. Man talk about a stupid idea. The idea is to look forward to the future, not hang about in the past. And besides iPad seems not about recreating the desktop in smaller form. This is about a new paradigm, not giving living to the dying monstrosity that is microsh*t.
As I thought, this reveals how concerned MS are at the mere thought of the iPads potential. It will allow new developers to produce specially designed and multi touch friendly software that will help them grow alongside the iPad itself and threaten MS at their own game. MS simply can’t afford to let that happen, it could lead to Office losing its overall dominance and decay of one half of the two legged chairs that make them money, at least before Ballmer breaks them completely. So obviously despite Mr Gates superficial expressions of comfort, some of his successors at MS are rather less comfortable at the iPad’s chances of being a game changer. But then we knew that didn’t we, as we constantly discover what is said officially by that company and its acolytes is far different to what is said in internal memos.
@Jim
Safari for the iPhone/touch/iPad is a core program, you can’t even delete core programs.
iWork for the iPad is not included, it’s just an optional program you pay extra for.
@ jtc
Have you even SEEN PhotoShop for the iPhone?!?!?
BTW – We are only ASSUMING Microsoft is going to go through with it and make an Office for the iPad. – They still may not.
@Mel Gross
Please explain your comments about “is NOT compatible”. I work in an environment with 1200 employees and no one even knows I’m on the Mac using iWork programs. For what the iPad would be used for, simple documents, spread sheets, presentations…iWork will work just fine. If you want to do “work” heavy stuff then use a desktop or a laptop. The iPad is not meant to be a full blown replacement for either.
No need to “eliminate” anything, there is really not a need for MS Office on a iPad.
iWork on the iPad is another way to keep chipping away at Microsuck’s market share… Get it in the hands of the consumers, and it will make it’s way into the office.
It’s going to be a long, long process due to Stockholm syndrome, etc… But the college students of today are going to change the world of tomorrow.
The iPad is supposed to be an entertainment device, not a work device. However for those of us that work too fikken much for our own good, I think iWorks is the perfect fit. Good enough to open a word document…good enough to write some stuff down and LATER, when you are back to your office, fix it up in Word. Keep the iPad fun ….keep MicroCrap off of it.
Some of you are not old enough to know this, but there was a day when Microsoft made a pretty good Office Suite. MS Word fit on a single 400k Disk. And it was better than MacWrite, by a long shot. That was true for just about two years, then they came out with bloated updates – each one packing in more “features” and bloatware and I quit. Quit because I was convinced that just having that shit on my Mac was messing it up somehow.
Now, all they have to do is go back and polish up that early version and make it ready for gestures and sell it for ten bucks and you got yerself MSWord for iPad “WordPad”
course, what I’m not saying is that Textedit is more of a word processor than the first MSWord ever was.
I’ll stick with iWork.
I bought MS office for my for busness reasons. I find it slow to load and basically sucks. It wil help make iPad enterprise freindly but I would not use that sluggish junk unless they make it snappy and unbloated.
Not going to happen.
Think about it. MS Office is the de facto standard. This will hold back iPad in the corporate world. Why would MS change that?
Thanks for the warning MS.
Fat chance, as in who wants that bloated product taking valuable memory on their iPad when iWorks will operate in a much more elegant and responsible manner.
Is there a way to tell when an app has been deleted or removed from a device?my biggest waste of money was buying MS Office for Mac, and putting it on a MBP. I finally removed it after I learned iWork. I wonder how many will buy iWork and Office, to do a side by side comparison, only to remove office. Trials would be great on apps over a certain dollar amount, that way we all could see what is best. At 99 cents, it is not a big deal to load junk, but over 50 bucks, it is a very big deal.
One of my first downloads will be all 3 iWork apps.
I don’t need Office.
If I get some files I cannot open correctly with iWork, I use NeoOffice. For scientific text are much better choices there than Word, like Mellel, etc. so that would be much more interesting than Office for iPad.
Office is over I think, maybe within the next five years the rest of the world also gets it – with help of their iPad.
I do think MS will come out with Office for the iPad, but this whole shift is really scary for them. If the price of good (actually better than MS) products on the new device category is set at $10/each, they’re are in trouble. Their old businesses are structured to capture much higher price tags.
MS has to win in these new categories in order to survive… yet they cannot win in these new categories because of where they’re coming from. Despite their public comments, they’re “war rooming” all of this… they can see they’re #4 and sliding in the mobile space.
Wonder if it’ll take more than 640K to install?
We all know that MS is enthusiastically looking forward to becoming another iPad/iPhone/iPod apps developer.
Like it or not, MS has to face the reality:
Apple: $500 hardware + $30 productivity apps = $530 lightweight computing device that works
MS : $500 craptop from 3rd party + $150 productivity apps = $650 headache
igads, there are numerous formatting problems, font problems, and such. You should know this. There are also problems with Excel because Apple doesn’t include many formulas or work with Visual Basic and other plug-ins for the Excel program, particularly the Windows version.
As you say, and as I said, for simple documents, it USUALLY works fine.
But you can’t count on it.
I don’t ever like seeing knee jerk reactions to things. I don’t like them on Appleinsider, where I’m a mod, by obvious PC users who are trying to say the iPad is a useless piece of junk other than for watching movies, and I don’t like it here, where some are knocking MS for wanting to produce a product for it.
No matter what, iWork is very limited, and no one is going to do work for their business on that product for anything other than simple documents.
But, someone like a salesman on the road, for example, may have to look at a contract that iwork can’t show properly.
It seems to me, that whether people want to buy this not yet decided project, they should at least welcome it as another option for users.
Saying there “is no need” is absurd! I know a lot of business people who won’t touch iWork. You may be fine with it, but many others aren’t.
It’s not you that matters, but those who might be considering this product, and who might find the lack of a simple Office compatible product from MS as a comfort, and even a necessity.
Why should the saes of the iPad be limited to those who think that iWork is enough?
I’m an Apple user from way back. We have four Macs now, plus four iPhones, and there are just three of us. I also used to buy Macs for my business, a commercial photo lab, and must have bought well over 300 over the years. So I’m not a MS secret admirer. I could tell you stories!
Really, M$ is just scared that, as the iPad grows in popularity, they would lose millions of sales of their flagship product.
First it will cost $79.95. Second it will not be usable with a touch interface. Third, even on the 64Gb iPad, it will use up all the storage space and completely fill active RAM!
Not for me.
So many people seem to think the iPad is just a touch screen version of a netbook/notebook/laptop etc. This isn’t the case. This is a new paradigm: a media consumption device. So trying to replicate a macbook on a ipad is a pointless activity. 90 odd percent of people don’t need 90% of the stuff on a notebook. Hence the ipad is not about doing that. the ipad isn’t a media creation machine, a workstation, a programming machine or any of the kind. Face the ipad device as a whole new game, not an adaptation of to the old game. microsh*t will never get this any way.
ribbon interface?!? no thanks! keep it yourself M$!
Excel – – Visual Basic restored … as was promised by Microsoft?
Apple isn’t always better than Microsoft. I personally like Word and Excel and would be happy to have them as an app on the iPad/iPhone. I tried Numbers and Pages and didn’t like them. A lot of features that I need are missing. And don’t forget what Steve Jobs said: Microsoft doesn’t have to lose for Apple to win. And I think this was a very good remark. So if MS brings Excel and Word as an app to the iPad, it will accelerate the sales! You may iCal me for that!
Damn, now I’m definitely going to have to purchase a stylus with my iPad. LOL
Still, there’s probably someone out there for whom iPad Microsoft Office would be just enough to push them over the edge and decided that the iPad is just what they need. It may irk Apple purists, but it will drive iPad sales.
Seroiusly, did all the regular MDN commenters leave only to be replaced by MS Office drones? Or are you all that easily intoxicated by the scent of MS vaporware? Blimey.
Gabriel, not all of us are as myopic as you are. We know and use software that Apple doesn’t make, as well as software they do make. You should try it. There’s a whole new world for you to learn about.
Hey, I just said some people would decide Microsoft Office would be enough to get them to get an iPad. I never said I was one of them. Believe it or not, I’m still using Office 2004 (and then only because someone I was working with installed it on my computer – the last version I _purchased_ was Office 2001) and I’m still debating if I’m going to upgrade to Office 2008 or switch to iWork.
No one here should have to apologize for using Office. That’s an extreme view that it’s bad. Even Apple knows its importance.
Typical MS hypocrites, first it has GatesBot One come out of cold storage “retirement” & say iPad is not magical or revolutionary tablet. WHO CARES what you think BillyBobBot? Be a philanthropists with your billions of dollars & cure malaria like you SAID you were focusing upon & but out.
NOW MS says BEFORE the iPad is even released that they are “thinking” about MS Office for Mac on iPad…WHY would you spend big bucks creating a totally new multi-touch tablet version of office for a worthless device that will not be successful? They wouldn’t because business is business. They KNOW this will be huge so their ego says “No, don’t buy this” but their greed says ” Yes, let’s cash on this!”
Also…R&D;for Apple iPad will roll into future Windows slate pad touch tablet version of “Office”.