“Apple’s decision to give away its own software for writing documents or spreadsheets and making presentations on an iPad presents a conundrum for Microsoft, whose Office suite is yet to arrive on devices other than its own,” Tim Bradshaw writes for Financial Times. “The software giant has so far held Office back from Apple’s iOS platform as a way to drive sales of its Surface tablet.”
MacDailyNews Take: Gee, that’s working out well, huh?
“However, the Surface has so far failed to achieve anything like the iPad’s success, with unsold inventory of one version causing a $900m writedown in July [Apple recently sold their 170,000,000th iPad – MDN Ed.],” Bradshaw writes. “Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s departing chief executive, has said Office 365, which costs $100 a year, will come to the iPad at some point but he has given no indication when or for what price.”
MacDailyNews Take: It’s garbage. Nobody in their right mind wants it. Shove it up your caboose sideways, Monkey Boy.
“Some analysts assert that Microsoft missed its best window of opportunity to bring Office to the iPad, after Apple said on Tuesday that it would give away its rival iWork apps to new customers,” Bradshaw writes. “Analysts say that after Apple cut the iWork suite’s price from $30 to free when a new iPad or iPhone is bought, these apps could be good enough for people not to need to wait for Office. ‘Apple are showing that the software is an addition to the hardware and is something that increases engagement – and they are not charging for it,’ said Carolina Milanesi, mobile analyst at Gartner. ‘They are going to make life more complicated for Microsoft who actually has a business charging for software.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Die Manuresoft, but first suffer crippling, debilitating pain.
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Windows free forever
OSX and iWorks for free forever too!
Microsoft can breathe a sigh of relief now that Apple has so totally shot itself in the foot with the castrated iWork applications and the twists and turns to make OSX an iOS wannabee without touchscreen capability in any desktop Mac.
OMG that retort! Laughing my ass off.
Wow, MDN is on form with there comments. I am also laughing my self silly with their comments. MS richly deserves all of it.
Ironically I use Microsoft Office just about every day and I think the Surface looks attractive. Yet I’m constantly fed up with Microsoft software and every time I see a Surface I know it’s a product that’s been screwed by Microsoft itself.
M$ is not a hardware company. I’m not so sure if they make software as it’s difficult to use.
That’s what you get when you have 10,000 monkeys typing code. 🙂
And the #1 hairless monkey throwing chairs, stomping on iPhones, dancing and gibbering. Sadly, that sideshow will soon end, and the crowds will begin to murmur expectantly, waiting for a replacement vaudeville act that may never materialise. IBMnification lies in Microsoft’s future.
I guess when you just throw features at software without any consideration of interacting with them easily through the interface you get Office. Then when you have to make it a ‘touch first’ version you have quadrupled the problems. Not seeing into the future or caring about was of use has always been their major problem mentally and now it is coming back to bite… and hard.
That hairless comment is uncalled for.
I think they spend more time picking fleas off each other than typing code.
No, no, no… You have the Microsoft coding protocol only half right. They pick the fleas off each other and incorporate the bugs INTO the code. Don’t you see the beautiful logic and economy of that? It saves time AND bath water. . . not to mention it’s Eco friendly, recycling the fleas. It keeps Greenpeace off their backs. But they are keeping it very hush-hush. . . PETA doesn’t know about the fate of the fleas. Being used in a Microsoft product could probably be considered cruel.
FYI: iWork apps can open and export to MS Office programs. Pages can import/export to MS Word, Keynote can import/export to PowerPoint, and Numbers can import/export to Excel. Apple has made it easy to swap between the two if you want to transition away from MS Office. Heck, even Apple Mail works with Exchange.
Unless you’re using the more advanced features in MS Office, which the vast majority of people aren’t. Pages is more than adequate for your needs.
Thanks GTDworak. I already knew that about iWork as I’ve purchased iWork in the past. Sadly, my old MacBook Pro stopped working last year so I’m forced to use a Windows laptop until I can get a proper income.
I’ve still got iWork on my iPad and my iPhone though.
Not to worry, Peter, you can now use iWork in iCloud if you have a Mac, Windows PC, iOS device… If your iPad and iPhone are running iOS 7, you’ll have full file compatibility with them all.
And free, to boot.
Thanks steveH, I didn’t know I could do that until I read your reply. I’ll have to try it out on my copy of Windows 8.1 Preview. I just wish Apple would update and support Safari for Windows. I hate not being able to afford a Mac right now.
And Shite! to boot
There is a reason why they are free.
Check out Apple’s Pages forums for just how much Pages has been carstrated.
Numbers works so so when importing excel. But it’s much better now with the new update when pulling in spreadsheets from excel. It’s a lot better, still needs to grow up. But numbers is a lot better than the previous version. Yes I repeated myself, I’m that happy with numbers now. yay!
just go feel how heavy the surface tablet is – maybe thats why they call it the surface cuz its hard to get it off one! Ha
It’s called a Surface because to use it properly, it must be placed on a. . . Ahem. . . surface. Invoking the virtual keyboard is difficult. It really NEEDS the optional ($119) keyboard cover, that requires a flat surface so you can “click” your touchscreen Surface into the keyboard/cover and turn it into a quasi-touchscreen-laptop/netbook using the two position kick-stand. Try balancing all this on your lap while working in your recliner or on your sofa and you’ll quickly move to the desk or dining room table. What happened to the advantage of having a tablet??? Portability? On handed operation???
When I got my first iPad I bought Apple’s click keyboard accessory for it. NEVER used it. Not once. It was a pain. No thank you to a device that makes one look around for something to lay it on so you can properly use it. Been there done that. Can do still do it with a laptop. . . and Apple makes two excellent ones. The MacBook Air at 2.9 pounds, and now the MacBook Pro at 3.45 pounds. Both will do more and better than the Surface if I want to lay something down on a surface!
The worst part is, the lock is inside.
Apple should wait until MS is junk, buy it, shut it down and give the money back to shareholders.
I like that strategy, I like it a lot. Though, does Microsoft really need any help to fail? They seem very capable on their own to shoot themselves in the foot. Then again, Apple, save your money!
Ballmer and Co are so happy about shooting themselves in the foot that they often times brag about their marksmanship. Give each other awards for the most times in one public presentation that they can shoot, reload and shoot again.
Only at Microsoft-Nokia can some buy a phone that only phones home to a disconnected number.
😉
With each new product announcement from Apple, MS death spiral is expedited. Heck, I could witness this before I die!
Loving every second precious of it.
If Apple did that, Apple would be the shareholder. Not a winning or profitable strategy.
See ya MS – Wouldn’t wanna be ya MS… And other childish retorts… but I really mean them.
flop sweat.
OpenOffice is much better anyway. Not only is it free in price, but it also is a very stable piece of software. I have managed to be more productive with that office suite than with MS Office.
I agree. But I’m partial to LibreOffice, the accelerated branch off relatively stagnating OpenOffice.
I’ve been using mainly Neo-Office since 2008. 🙂
I liked Neo-Office. They added some nice Mac bells and whistles. But I didn’t donate and i didn’t want to build it from source myself. Then the LibreOffice revolt happened, which I thoroughly endorsed seeing as I hate Oracle for having screwed over both Java and OpenOffice. So I waited until LibreOffice was stable and have been happily ever after, mostly.
I haven’t played with either for quite a while. Does LibreOffice now have anything like Excel’s Solver (which is made by Frontline Solvers, not by Microsoft)? That’s a ‘must have’ for me for implementing the simplex and some nonlinear algorithms.
I’m sorry but I don’t know. I’m not aware of it having any sort of plug-in or add-on system. That’s the case with all the OpenOffice branches.
I might be tooting my own horn here, but word processors, basic image movement (presentation software that is), and mathematical spreadsheets are the some of the most basic things a computer has been able to do since the early 90’s. The fact that windows thinks the programming deserves 100 to 300 bucks per user is ridiculous. OpenOffice, Google Docs, and now iWork are just telling microsoft, “stop using this as your money-maker because its basic code software and we will crush you with basic code.”
I understand that some people really need or like MS Office. But iWork being free on Apple products will cripple the adoption rate of MS Office.
Revenue equals customers times profit per unit and as both numbers are going down for MS that puts them in a world of hurt.
How is Ballmer going to shove the Surface up there? I’d imagine that it would be very painful, due to the Surface’s large size. All that twerking didn’t help matters either…
This is a big mistake for Apple! Remember what happened when they ditched Google Maps for Apple Maps? The same thing is going to happen when they reject M$ Orofice for Apple iWork. Please stay with us, Ballmer may even give you his debut video album, featuring 30 minutes of sexy twerking action! Please stay with Microslob.
Microsloth: Your Problems, Our Passion.
Ah, I see you’ve escaped your restraints again.
Seems like you havent use Apple Map..
You better try Apple Map now.
For info apple didn’t ditch google maps for apple maps.
Google fucked apple and apple had to create their own maps app because of it and that was all because Eric the mole Schmidt from google was mistakingly on apple’s board and they found out that he was stealing Apple’s ip and relaying their secrets back to google.
Eric took advantage of a dieing Steve jobs and hence google android was born from stolen iOS code.
This is the fundamental reason why I will never use any google products and why a lot of apple fans hate google.
Google and Samsung are just thieves with an apple complex thinking that they are apple.
I’m not sure Office ever was a consumer standard. Any tool is good enough for home use, and the iWork suite is fantastic in that regard and free will cement this. However, compatibility is king in the enterprise – you need to know a document looks exactly like you want it to look when you send it to a co-worker. Unless Apple begins to offer iWork for windows, companies cannot switch to iWork for everybody. The web apps are fantastic but don’t cut it for the enterprise because you need to be online. Any worker with a laptop offline can’t use them. So I think Microsoft will still be pretty safe. People that say iWork is compatible have never tried this feature. Even a one page CV that I created in word and opened in the new pages was completely messed up – pictures disappeared, font changed, footnotes missing, etc. .. For business use that’s not acceptable.
Modify a heavily formatted Word document in Windows and it falls apart. Older versions of Word cannot open documents made with recent versions of Word. I use Pages and export as a Windows 97 format. No one complains about distorted formatting.
Apple clearly are in a league of their own. If tech companies were musicians, this is how it would go: Microsoft is Miley Cyrus, Android is Justin Bieber, and Apple would be Sufjan Stevens. Samsung would obviously be Psy “Gangnam Style”. 😉
With you until Samsung. IMHO they are a Cheap Trick cover band.
Apple is more like The Beatles and Samsung is attempting to be cover band playing plastic toy guitars and a kiddie learn-to-drum set.
So it’s now official, let’s recap:
1) Cheap hardware, expensive software model is dead.
2) Quality hardware, with no cost software now the model to beat.
Did I get that right?
For a long time I’ve used Excel almost daily to solve a range of client problems, from trivial to intricate. It operates as a lingua franca in distributing data and presentations. (I prefer it to PDF or anything proprietary from Adobe, the repulsive witch proffering the poisoned apple.) Excel has a sufficient understanding of alternative file formats. It is not the best tool in my arsenal but is versatile. Yet I hesitate to consider acquiring a touch version of it.
I wonder if Microsoft can be serious with this insane idea of theirs to merge UIs. There are more degrees of freedom required to manipulate complex data sets than are available in the language of multi-touch, and switching back and forth between interaction modes will not make anyone’s life easier. We’d need a mature haptic UI technology to make that work. It won’t come from Microsoft.
I suppose they expect Surface buyers to just use a mouse with Excel, but I already do that with the hardware I own, and so would anyone else. As for Mobile Productivity, who works on complex spreadsheets whilst picnicking on the esplanade? There’s something committee-like, and IQ-averaging, about their stupid marketing decisions.
By the way, the rest of Microsoft Office is junk. PowerPoint sucks the marrow from your bones, poisons your neurons, zombifies your audiences. And for people whose livelihoods depend on words, Word is a horror.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/10/why-microsoft-word-must-die.html
Hey Micro$oft, don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
They don’t have to dance around their door, it’s already closed.
Ballmer clearly never learned much from his liberal education @ Harvard about things like “The Emporer Had No Clothes.”
Beliefs that one can maintain a monopoly forever just NEVER work. Just look at the likes of IBM or Kodak. Change or die.
Apparently whatever school you went to didn’t teach you how to spell emperor.
Microsoft is irrelevant.
The problem with the new iWorks isn’t Office compatibility, which is enhanced since the last version. The problem is compatibility between the iWorks versions. There were tens of thousands of people using Pages as a simple layout program for newsletters and the like. The new version is purely a word processor. Importing an old file deletes all the links between text boxes. You cannot flow text between pages. You cannot edit page spreads. You cannot reorder pages. Etc.
I would never get Office 365. I think it is bulls*** to pay a subscription for a software, especially if it costs $100 a year whereas the purchase price is about $110 (current price on Amazon). I do like Excel and Word though and I have not managed to understand Numbers and Pages. Especially Numbers seems to me of lacking a lot of functions that Excel has and that I need for my daily work. I am curious though how well Apple will compete with their iWorks compared to Microsoft’s Office. It clearly gives Apple a big chance but only if Office documents can be easily and fully opened and converted as well as iWorks documents can be saved properly in the Office format. – I personally hate to have to deal with format conversions if working with the documents. A common format that would be used by all the office productivity programs would be the best solution in my opinion.
RIP Microsoft and with the new collaboration tools google docs is dead too :))
Time to get the champagne out guys :)))
And Apple miss the window of opportunity to develop a serious contender to Windows office.
Apple had four years time to close the gap to Microsoft Office but instead to add missing functionality like formula editor, pivot tables etc. they kill important ones they have already implemented.
The real challenge is to create a powerful software which is easy to use but Apple take another route – they develop a slimmed down Mickey Mouse product for MacOS which is more for making colorful photo collages than want to be a serious text editor.
Of course they need compatibility between MacOS and iOS but to bring down the desktop version to the level of the tablet version is the completely wrong approach and make Pages a NoGo for many many users.
So the future of Microsoft Office on MacOS is brighter than ever before.
For years it was a nobrainer to install each update on day 1, but in the meantime you should be anxious about each new version of Apple software, because they kill much beloved features eg. with iTunes 11 or now with Pages or they kill the easyness of use e.g. in iOS 7. To change the physical look of buttons with tiny text and unstructured surfaces is not Apples best innovation – it is only a dump copy of Microsoft Windows Mobile.
The secret of success of iOS up to version 6 was that it was easy to use for very young children up to very old people. For the first text is a mystic miracle and for the last the text is to tiny for their eyes. And for all people who are not very used to tablets it is very hard to recognise a functional part of the screen. Apple betrayed their own principles of easyness to use.
And by the way Apple software always surprised with love to little details but now all software development shows into the direction reduce to the max which results in a cold, impersonal and interchangeable design.
As soon as “Pivot Table”-esque functionality comes to Numbers, I will drop Excel in a heartbeat. The closest thing to it being Categories in the ’09 release has gone in the new version (which I think is a step backwards). But there are ways around that (albeit fiddly ones), and I will persevere for now.
MS Office is officially a legacy app. The only people using it are old people that don’t want to learn anything new. I was recently at an Ivy league school, at the student union, looking around and saw probably 20 students on their Mac laptops. I think I noticed ONE PC.
The takes have been just great lately. Keep it up.