4 ms·

It runs Office.

mtgx 14y ago
iPad and Android will get Office in spring, too, and it will probably cost $30 at most, otherwise no one will get it, and moving them to these 2 platforms would have been a pointless exercise. But I still fail to see how this is a major selling point on a tablet. I'm sure Quick Office and Apple's office suite provide more than enough functionality for most people, and an experience that isn't too cumbersome. But what bothers me most about it when people mention this is that they seem to think that because it has Office, it just washes away all the app advantage that the iPad or even Android have on tablets. And that's nowhere near being true. The Surface does have a lower value because of lack of apps, and that should be reflected in the price. There's little reason in getting a $500 Windows RT tablet over a $250 Nexus 7 (half the price, same performance).
- JimmaDaRustla 14y ago
  I think you underestimate the dominance of MS Office, and the ability to use it as a selling point.
  - vetinari 14y ago
    On tablet? No. Office requires high precision input devices (i.e. keyboard and mouse), which are precisely the devices that tablets do not have. Tablets are consumption devices; for productivity, you will still want laptop or desktop - without Metro.
    - dpark 14y ago
      > Office requires high precision input devices (i.e. keyboard and mouse), which are precisely the devices that tablets do not have. Touch cover or type cover, perhaps. I haven't used either of these yet, but I believe this is one of the niches they are intended to fill.
      - vetinari 14y ago
        Transformer Prime owner here. It has a detachable keyboard, that while quite nice (it is a battery too, so no balancing problems!) is still a far cry from a keyboard on a proper laptop. (Btw., keyboard on Thinkpad X230 rocks, despite being chicklet). I'm working daily with Excel. If someone in IT would have the crazy idea to buy us tablets (even Surface) for that work, we would beat them with it. That's why I see the "Office on RT" as hyped nonsense.
        dpark 14y ago
        It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking no one will buy X if it's not as good at Y as Z. (Here X, Y, Z = tablet, document editing, laptop.) A laptop will undoubtedly be better for document editing than a Windows RT tablet. But then, a full-blown desktop is better for document editing than a laptop yet desktop purchases are still plummeting. People won't buy a Windows RT tablet because it's the best at document editing. That might buy it because it's good enough at document editing, more portable than a laptop, and fun to play casual games on, though. (Of course it might meet an entirely different checklist for many.) I don't think anyone is expecting the Surface to replace your work computer. There are a lot of people torn between getting a tablet or a laptop, though, and for a sizable chunk of those people, Office RT + Touch/Type Cover might be a real selling feature.
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  My experience with Numbers on the iPad is pretty awful. Even at the price I kind of felt cheated. It might not be possible to do a good office suite on a touch centric device but I'm not sure anyone has really tried up to this point. The number of people needing such a thing is still relatively small (but obviously growing).
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    Adding a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse should make a tablet-based office suite quite useful.
    - octopus 14y ago
      Adding a keyboard and a mouse to an iPad will make this non portable (at least for me). If you really need a keyboard and a small device I think buying a Mac Book Air 11' is a much better choice.
      - dpark 14y ago
        Also the iPad doesn't know what a mouse is, so that's a non-starter. Disclosure: Microsoft employee, not that it seems relevant
    - vetinari 14y ago
      Yes, but then you have basically ARM laptop, just with more standalone parts and with worse usability as a real laptop.
- yaantc 14y ago
  I agree with you, real office support (there are ~compatible apps on both iPad and Android) seems a very weak selling point on a tablet. I personally don't care for it: my tablet is a "potato couch" or information consumption device. For the occasional office document viewing the existing apps are plenty enough. If I need to do serious work, I'll grab my laptop. And the many convertible products announced also leave me cold. I used to think such convertible devices would be the next big thing, but no more after looking at it. For me a convertible is either too big for a tablet, or too small for a laptop. Plus the balancing is usually wrong in laptop mode (too much weight in the screen/tablet). In the end it looks like a seaplane: neither a good boat nor a good plane. But just like a seaplane some people will have a use for it ;) On my side, there are now cheap and light tablets. For roughly the same price I'd rather have a cheap tablet (Nexus 7 is plenty enough for me for example) and a cheap but ok laptop. I can put both in a bag, and it's still lighter than my previous laptop. Then I can have the best device for my current usage. Sync is not a problem, there are plenty of options to deal with this, and for what I use the tablet for it really doesn't need to have the same OS as the laptop (different usage, different apps. And actually not many on the tablet). But it's a big world, and maybe I'm not mainstream. We'll see when the hype settles and the actual sales number start to fall.

It runs Office.

mtgx 14y ago

iPad and Android will get Office in spring, too, and it will probably cost $30 at most, otherwise no one will get it, and moving them to these 2 platforms would have been a pointless exercise. But I still fail to see how this is a major selling point on a tablet. I'm sure Quick Office and Apple's office suite provide more than enough functionality for most people, and an experience that isn't too cumbersome. But what bothers me most about it when people mention this is that they seem to think that because it has Office, it just washes away all the app advantage that the iPad or even Android have on tablets. And that's nowhere near being true. The Surface does have a lower value because of lack of apps, and that should be reflected in the price. There's little reason in getting a $500 Windows RT tablet over a $250 Nexus 7 (half the price, same performance).

JimmaDaRustla 14y ago
I think you underestimate the dominance of MS Office, and the ability to use it as a selling point.
- vetinari 14y ago
  On tablet? No. Office requires high precision input devices (i.e. keyboard and mouse), which are precisely the devices that tablets do not have. Tablets are consumption devices; for productivity, you will still want laptop or desktop - without Metro.
  - dpark 14y ago
    > Office requires high precision input devices (i.e. keyboard and mouse), which are precisely the devices that tablets do not have. Touch cover or type cover, perhaps. I haven't used either of these yet, but I believe this is one of the niches they are intended to fill.
    - vetinari 14y ago
      Transformer Prime owner here. It has a detachable keyboard, that while quite nice (it is a battery too, so no balancing problems!) is still a far cry from a keyboard on a proper laptop. (Btw., keyboard on Thinkpad X230 rocks, despite being chicklet). I'm working daily with Excel. If someone in IT would have the crazy idea to buy us tablets (even Surface) for that work, we would beat them with it. That's why I see the "Office on RT" as hyped nonsense.
      - dpark 14y ago
        It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking no one will buy X if it's not as good at Y as Z. (Here X, Y, Z = tablet, document editing, laptop.) A laptop will undoubtedly be better for document editing than a Windows RT tablet. But then, a full-blown desktop is better for document editing than a laptop yet desktop purchases are still plummeting. People won't buy a Windows RT tablet because it's the best at document editing. That might buy it because it's good enough at document editing, more portable than a laptop, and fun to play casual games on, though. (Of course it might meet an entirely different checklist for many.) I don't think anyone is expecting the Surface to replace your work computer. There are a lot of people torn between getting a tablet or a laptop, though, and for a sizable chunk of those people, Office RT + Touch/Type Cover might be a real selling feature.
MatthewPhillips 14y ago
My experience with Numbers on the iPad is pretty awful. Even at the price I kind of felt cheated. It might not be possible to do a good office suite on a touch centric device but I'm not sure anyone has really tried up to this point. The number of people needing such a thing is still relatively small (but obviously growing).
- nitrogen 14y ago
  Adding a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse should make a tablet-based office suite quite useful.
  - octopus 14y ago
    Adding a keyboard and a mouse to an iPad will make this non portable (at least for me). If you really need a keyboard and a small device I think buying a Mac Book Air 11' is a much better choice.
    - dpark 14y ago
      Also the iPad doesn't know what a mouse is, so that's a non-starter. Disclosure: Microsoft employee, not that it seems relevant
  - vetinari 14y ago
    Yes, but then you have basically ARM laptop, just with more standalone parts and with worse usability as a real laptop.
yaantc 14y ago
I agree with you, real office support (there are ~compatible apps on both iPad and Android) seems a very weak selling point on a tablet. I personally don't care for it: my tablet is a "potato couch" or information consumption device. For the occasional office document viewing the existing apps are plenty enough. If I need to do serious work, I'll grab my laptop. And the many convertible products announced also leave me cold. I used to think such convertible devices would be the next big thing, but no more after looking at it. For me a convertible is either too big for a tablet, or too small for a laptop. Plus the balancing is usually wrong in laptop mode (too much weight in the screen/tablet). In the end it looks like a seaplane: neither a good boat nor a good plane. But just like a seaplane some people will have a use for it ;) On my side, there are now cheap and light tablets. For roughly the same price I'd rather have a cheap tablet (Nexus 7 is plenty enough for me for example) and a cheap but ok laptop. I can put both in a bag, and it's still lighter than my previous laptop. Then I can have the best device for my current usage. Sync is not a problem, there are plenty of options to deal with this, and for what I use the tablet for it really doesn't need to have the same OS as the laptop (different usage, different apps. And actually not many on the tablet). But it's a big world, and maybe I'm not mainstream. We'll see when the hype settles and the actual sales number start to fall.