“Office for iPhone is big news, but not because the software is earthshaking,” David Pogue writes for The New York Times. “No, it’s a big deal primarily because of the politics of the situation — the optics, as public relations people say. Here is Microsoft — the once-mighty software global overlord, years into its repeated failures to produce a successful smartphone — creating an app that lets you edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files on the gadget that defeated it, the iPhone. It’s as if somewhere along the line, Microsoft executives started wearing ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join ’em’ T-shirts.”
Pogue writes, “You can’t buy the Office Mobile app outright. It’s free with your paid subscription to Microsoft’s Office 365 plan, which costs $100 a year. It’s a service that lets you download Word, Excel and PowerPoint to up to five Mac or Windows computers… That’s why its impressively clunky full name is Office Mobile for Office 365 Subscribers… Office Mobile is a nice perk for Office 365 subscribers. It’s simply and fluidly designed. And it’s a cinch to learn. You’d never guess that it’s the distant relative of a software suite that’s about as svelte and lovely as Jabba the Hutt. But as an iPhone version of Microsoft Office, it’s almost ridiculously limited.”
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“Surprisingly enough, the Internet is teeming with Office apps for the iPhone — made by non-Microsoft companies. Better ones, more complete ones, no-subscription-required ones. For example, Apple’s own Pages, Numbers and Keynote apps ($10 each) can edit Office documents,” Pogue writes. “And you don’t need any extra software to open and read, but not edit, Office documents. The iPhone can do that all by its little self. In the end, then, Office Mobile for iPhone is very little, very late. Its non-Microsoft competitors are already far more useful.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The longer Microsoft’s management fails to grasp reality, the steeper their oh-so-deserved decline.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Rainy Day” for the heads up.]