Microsoft Corp’s press release follows, verbatim:
Today, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled the customer preview of the new Microsoft Office, available at office.com/preview. The next release features an intuitive design that works beautifully with touch, stylus, mouse or keyboard across new Windows devices, including tablets. The new Office is social and unlocks modern scenarios in reading, note-taking, meetings and communications and will be delivered to subscribers through a cloud service that is always up to date.
“We are taking bold steps at Microsoft,” Ballmer said at the press conference in San Francisco. “The new, modern Office will deliver unparalleled productivity and flexibility for both consumers and business customers. It is a cloud service and will fully light-up when paired with Windows 8.”
Office at Its Best on Windows 8
• Touch everywhere. Office responds to touch as naturally as it does to keyboard and mouse. Swipe your finger across the screen or pinch and zoom to read your documents and presentations. Author new content and access features with the touch of a finger.
• Inking. Use a stylus to create content, take notes and access features. Handwrite email responses and convert them automatically to text. Use your stylus as a laser pointer when presenting. Color your content and erase your mistakes with ease.
• New Windows 8 applications. OneNote and Lync represent the first new Windows 8 style applications for Office. These applications are designed to deliver touch-first experiences on a tablet. A new radial menu in OneNote makes it easy to access features with your finger.
• Included in Windows RT. Office Home and Student 2013 RT, which contains new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote applications, will be included on ARM-based Windows 8 devices, including Microsoft Surface.
Office Is in the Cloud
• SkyDrive. Office saves documents to SkyDrive by default, so your content is always available across your tablet, PC and phone. Your documents are also available offline and sync when you reconnect.
• Roaming. Once signed in to Office, your personalized settings, including your most recently used files, templates and even your custom dictionary, roam with you across virtually all of your devices. Office even remembers where you last left off and brings you right back to that spot in a single click.
• Office on Demand. With a subscription, you can access Office even when you are away from your PC by streaming full-featured applications to an Internet-connected Windows-based PC.
• New subscription services. The new Office is available as a cloud-based subscription service. As subscribers, consumers automatically get future upgrades in addition to exciting cloud services including Skype world minutes and extra SkyDrive storage. Subscribers receive multiple installs for everyone in the family and across their devices.
Office Is Social
• Yammer. Yammer delivers a secure, private social network for businesses. You can sign up for free and begin using social networking instantly. Yammer offers integration with SharePoint and Microsoft Dynamics.
• Stay connected. Follow people, teams, documents and sites in SharePoint. View and embed pictures, videos and Office content in your activity feeds to stay current and update your colleagues.
• People Card. Have an integrated view of your contacts everywhere in Office. The People Card includes presence information complete with pictures, status updates, contact information and activity feeds from Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.
• Skype. The new Office comes with Skype. When you subscribe, you get 60 minutes of Skype world minutes every month. Integrate Skype contacts into Lync and call or instant message anyone on Skype.
Office Unlocks New Scenarios
• Digital note-taking. Keep your notes handy in the cloud and across multiple devices with OneNote. Use what feels most natural to you — take notes with touch, pen or keyboard, or use them together and switch easily back and forth.
• Reading and markup. The Read Mode in Word provides a modern and easy-to-navigate reading experience that automatically adjusts for large and small screens. Zoom in and out of content, stream videos within documents, view revision marks and use touch to turn pages.
• Meetings. PowerPoint features a new Presenter View that privately shows your current and upcoming slides, presentation time, and speaker notes in a single glance. While presenting, you can zoom, mark up and navigate your slides with touch and stylus. Lync includes multiparty HD video with presentations, shared OneNote notebooks and a virtual whiteboard for collaborative brainstorming.
• Eighty-two-inch touch-enabled displays. Conduct more engaging meetings, presentations and lessons, whether in person or virtually, with these multitouch and stylus-enabled displays from Perceptive Pixel.
While the full lineup of offerings and pricing plans will be announced in the fall, Ballmer discussed three new Office 365 subscription services. When available, each new subscription offer will include the new 2013 editions of the Office applications — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access. In addition, subscribers will receive future rights to version upgrades as well as per-use rights across up to five PCs or Macs and mobile devices. The three new editions will be the following:
• Office 365 Home Premium — designed for families and consumers. This service also includes an additional 20 GB of SkyDrive storage and 60 minutes of Skype world minutes per month.
• Office 365 Small Business Premium — designed for small businesses. This service also includes business-grade email, shared calendars, website tools and HD webconferencing.
• Office 365 ProPlus — designed for enterprise customers who want advanced business capabilities and the flexibility to deploy and manage in the cloud.
The customer preview is available at office.com/preview
Source: Microsoft Corporation
MacDailyNews Take: With this “new” Office, users are stuck with the usual desktop-based UI festooned with myriad taskbars, menus, and toolbars; Same old shit sandwich, stiffed to the gills, slathered under Metro icing. Launch Word on a Surface tablet, if they ever do actually appear for sale, and you’re chucked right straight back into the old Windows UI.
Back and forth, with no rhyme or reason, the sufferers are forced to bounce between the old Windows UI and the Metro tile-fest that’s meant to mask the platforms’ terminal case of AppLack™.
Schizo much, Microsoft? As always, Microsoft is unwilling, unable, and downright scared shitless to let go of the Windows PC cash cow’s teats. It will be their undoing, yet. That cow’s cash is drying up quickly.
Microsoft’s new Office on their vaporous Surface tablet will virtually require a physical keyboard (or endure the frustration of being forced to try to work in a tiny strip of hardly usable space with the soft keyboard overlaying most of your document). So, then, why not just get a notebook computer ? If you’re unfortunate enough to have to run Office, you might as well be smart about it and get a MacBook Air to run it either natively (Office for Mac) or via fast virtualization (Parallels, VMWare Fusion, etc.).
The rest of us will continue to enjoy Apple’s iWork not only on our Macs, but also on our iPads where it’s designed for Multi-Touch™ from the ground up. With iWork for iPad, Apple has put the deep level of care and thought into the product that Microsoft, throughout their history, have constantly and without fail proven themselves to be incapable of replicating.
wow…… I’m…. underwhelmed……
Hmmm… I am just whelmed. Underwhelmed takes too much effort. 😉
Scenarios? Scenarios?? What is this, some sort of sic-fi parallel universe or something? What a horribly lame attempt to make dull work sound “cool.” Maybe IT doofuses will eat that up, who knows, but for most people calling anything in Office a scenario is patently silly.
…and don’t forget to pronounce it like the pretentious “sen-ahhhh-rio”
Yup, to us Brits “sennerrio” sounds soooo much better.
good one. I especially like the take that it will light up when “paired” with W8. “Paired?” Really? Sounds like the wine steward at our favorite restaurant. You mean that it doesn’t have to be “paired” with W8? Like it won’t work unless it’s tethered and integrated with W8. There’s no “pairing” involved.
Homophones. He meant it will lie tit up when “pared” with W8.
Ballmer just unveiled the latest dinosaur marching into extinction in a few short years. Who the hell is going to fork out cold hard cash to upgrade to this piece of shit.
Idunno, I think ol’ Stevie is on to something big. I like where he’s taking the SS Microsloth and am looking forward to the show. Genius, that guy…
Was this Press Release timed to lessen the “loser factor” associated with the collapse of MSNBC? I smell PR at work.
Hmmm… But of course. This is their idea of “focus?”….
There is no collapse at MSNBC. Maybe wishful thinking on your part. NBC (Comcast) just wanted a split MSNBC and NBC News web presence.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/
How terribly confusing to the untold dozens of regular viewers!
NBC (Comcast) just wanted a split MSNBC and NBC News web presence.
I’m glad you brought a link, because if I had to go with your description, all Comcast did was remove the letters MS from the name.
It’s the new Microsoft Refrig-a-toster! 😀
Actually it’s a Refrig-b-toster.
B for beta. 😉
What struck me about the announcement is how slavish copiers trumpet innovation.
Still using & loving TextEdit!!!
And I thought I was cheap using AppleWorks on my old G5 😉
According to Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/mobility.aspx) Office 365 still can’t read or write Word, Excel or Powerpoint docs on an iPad (or Android device) = useless.
Yawwwnnn.
Hey Ballmer, want novel innovative ideas for Office?
1) Make it stable
2) Make Outlook work properly
Microsoft, when it just has to be…good enough!
I like it a lot! SB continues to amaze.
I watched, and I have to say, Ballmer summed it all up in one sentence:
“It feels like 1995.” – Steve Ballmer
Yeah! I caught that too!
I see other people caught this line as well.
From Cnet: “Not really sure Ballmer should be saying that it feels like 1995.”
This man is a genius when it comes to presentations.
Living in past six column headlines …
Two thousand zero one two, party over, out of time!
MSFT’s flat monochrome tiles look more like 1980….
Pages and Keynote on iOS (& of course Mac) is phenomenal (especially compared to the Office counterparts. Not really much experience with Numbers or Excel).
Microsoft just named itself into a corner. Office 365?!? Supposing that this will actually develop into a real, viable product, where does one go from there?
Office 24/7?!? Office ∞?
It just brings to mind my roots: Windows 3.1.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows XT (what did that even mean?). Luckily I missed out on Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and OBVIOUSLY Windows 8.
Such a convoluted mess already, then add all of the options Home Premium, Business Premium, Ultimate, ProPlus, Home and Student. o_O
And am I wrong, or is it again with Microsoft not announcing price or release date of the actual software.
Yep, as usual, no ship date, no price.
But old school IT and WallStreet doofii like them because of their “road map” and backward compatibility.
While the Office Applications have a ton of issues the fact remains that Excel is widely used and Numbers is not an Excel replacement. There are far too many things it will not do. Unless Apple updates Numbers to be on par with Excel many companies will choose to remain on Office and that choice could drive them to purchase Windows based tablets. Maybe Apple is fine conceding the enterprise space to Microsoft and will strengthen its grip on the consumer side with the iPad Mini.
Have to agree there.
Excel is the one application that Microsoft has produced that no one has been able to beat. I’ve tried them all and while you can find ones that give you 80% of what you might need from Excel that last 20% is a killer and sends you right back to Excel.
You must not be very smart if you cannot work around the other 20 percent.
I don’t care for “work arounds” when there is a product that exists that does what I need.
The other spreadsheets out there are flat out not as good and fall short of Excel. I’m not settling for that crap.
Then you really don’t see it do you, Millions of iPads sold “75 to 80 million estimated total of all sales”, hundreds of corporations purchasing them by the thousands for workers, Colleges, K-12 School’s, Airline’s, Goverments… Ect…
And not ONE Microsoft product needed to sell one iPad, not one.
Office is a has-been product. Tablet’s function different, the consumer and corporate buyers are smarter and they understand the changes that have taken place, it’s without Microsoft this time.
Dozens of applications that do even better then Office and have more to offer, iWork is very capable,and many many more.
Microsoft is trying to go Back in time, while everyone else is going forward, they are still using the same model they have pushed for tablets sales and software from 10 years ago..
They just blew the dust off the manual of failed tablet attempts and are doing it again.
And why would anyone want to be hooked into a money grabbing license cycle by Microsoft again if they can help it, it’s overpriced and very under delivered.
And still very much Vapor-Ware at this time.
Again, there is still nothing that can replace Excel. You can call it has-been all you want, but when it comes time to do ACTUAL WORK and not just play with a new toy, I’m sticking with Office, and especially Excel.
Tried to register and install:
Bad news: Office
We found a problem!
We’re sorry. Office (32-bit) couldn’t be installed because you have these
64-bit Office programs installed on your computer:
Microsoft Office Visio 2010
Microsoft Office Visio 2010
Microsoft Office Office 32-bit components 2010
Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010
32-bit and 64-bit versions of Office programs don’t get along, so you
can only have one type installed at a time,
Please try installing the 64-bit version of Office instead, or uninstall your
other 64-bit Office programs and try this installation again.
Go online to look for additional help.
Close
Good news: No BSOD & it didn’t install, after all.
I’d only install a “preview” in a virtual machine!
Hell some of their production stuff I’ll only install in a VM! Hehe
All I can think while reading this is – would I trust my company’s crown jewels to the Cloud? (No) Where is the SECURITY and when the Internet goes down, where has my company gone? (Gone forever) Do I trust Microsoft with my data? (No)
The app is “free beta” with Win 8, but you have to pay the subscription fee each month to keep using it?
Disclosure: I use Win 8 on my MacBookPro – as little as I can.
From the horse’s mouth:
students == tools
personal life != private life
Welcome [back] to the social!
But now I can print my tooth fairy letter while I’m on vacation.
Wow. How utterly underwhelming. Just that fact that Ballmer said that this is the most exciting thing Microsoft had done in 17 years when they brought out Windows 95 and a new version of Office at the same time!
Tablet Support? Not really. Touch support, but no iOS apps. Nobody is going to buy a Surface to get Office 2013.
But, WAIT!!! Word has a “Reader” function. Oh, yeah, like the one Safari has had for a while now. But what the hell is he doing with a “Reader” function in a word processor???? Isn’t that kinda the FUNCTION of a word processor, to give you something to read?????
How much more of this ignorance and ugliness will we have to take???
So let me get this straight….
They will be coming out for a version of Office for touch type devices like the iPad but…..not for the iPad? Ah, so they are planning on going after other devices like Android slate type devices, Kindle’s and possibly this Surface thing that doesn’t exist yet?
Huh? I don’t get it. Why would you go after the smallest of market devices let alone the one that is full of free-tards that wouldn’t pay a dime for software. Then you have all the devices that I’m sure won’t have the guts or power to run MS’s bloated software.
What are they thinking. Are they trying to freeze the market so people won’t go out and buy iPads? Do they think they can make money somehow with this strategy?
I’m confused, please someone explain.
i believe their strategy of announcing stuff that doesn’t exist is intended to work in one of two ways depending on the context. In the case you mention, it’s supposed to stop you buying the new stuff that the “competition” have just brought out; if you’re thinking of spending money, wait for something better. However in this case I think the intention is to stop people letting go of what they already have because there is a better version on the way; like trying to stop rats leaving a sinking ship.
Worse than no offering for the iPad, is the fact there is no compelling reason to upgrade from Office 2007 on Windows XP.
My company is just beginning to install Office 10. I’ve been lost since the change from Office 2003. Too many menus. My company will never go to the cloud. Couldn’t get approval to use a cloud provider to have a vendor upload encrypted files that we could download instead of the provider FEDEXing a DVD.
What consumer wants to buy yet another subscription service? Fail.
For the iPad, OnLive App gives me Office and works with several cloud apps. No big deal. Don’t use it. Just have it in case I need access to a work file.
Ballmer just Osborned Office 10 for those who were on the bubble as to making a decision purchase. many may now wait to see how it sorts out.
Keep up the good work like its 1995.
Didn’t anybody notice?
• New subscription services. The new Office is available as a cloud-based subscription service. As subscribers, consumers automatically get future upgrades in addition to exciting cloud services including Skype world minutes and extra SkyDrive storage. Subscribers receive multiple installs for everyone in the family and across their devices.
You won’t own it, but you’ll be RENTING IT!
Uh-oh!
MDN, your take is so unkind to Mr.Softie! 😊
This is what happens when you put the sales guys in charge of engineering.
Looks impressive. Cant wait to get my hands on
It running it on win8 with Parallels VM.