5 ms·

Microsoft's $2.5bn question: what if it doesn't release Office for the iPad?

21 points by Cbasedlifeform 13y ago

harrystone 13y ago
I imagine the strategy is that if you want Office on a tablet, you need to buy a Surface. Apparently it's not reason enough.
- devx 13y ago
  People don't buy whole devices for an app. Or at least not most people.
  - chimeracoder 13y ago
    > People don't buy whole devices for an app. For the record, I've heard variants of the exact opposite argument for why "people will never switch from iOS to Android", or "I could never give up $APP on my iPhone". If Office really is that important to you, then yes, you might actually consider getting a Surface (tablet/laptop combo) instead of a Macbook and an iPad separately.
  - Silhouette 13y ago
    I'm pretty sure that's not true, and many people do very much buy a device for one killer app. Look at games consoles, if the tablet market alone isn't convincing. However, I very much doubt anyone is going to buy a tablet-style device (of any brand) for this kind of application, because it's a silly kind of application to run on a tablet-style device.
  - Guvante 13y ago
    What reasons do you believe people are buying devices for it not the applications on them? If you are putting the emphasis on app then I would point out that Office is used by almost as many people as Facebook, so an app is a bit of an over simplification.
- gebe 13y ago
  You get the full Office 2013 suite with most x86 tablets nowadays (which you won't when you buy a Surface oddly enough). For me that definitely played a part in my decision to get an Asus T100.
bananas 13y ago
Because it's an awful productivity device? It has no usable filesystem, poor integration between applications, awful input device support, a tiny screen and is impractical for office work. Yes I do own one for reference.
- aaronblohowiak 13y ago
  >impractical for office work yet a lot of people bring them to meetings as an alternative to an iPad. If you are mostly an email person, being able to open these attachments is useful.
  - kyriakos 13y ago
    everytime i see people with ipads in meetings (same applies for android tablets) they usually use them as document viewers. why do you need a full office suite to do that?
    - Silhouette 13y ago
      ...use them as document viewers. why do you need a full office suite to do that? You don't, but unless the only people you work with are the kind who like to look at things and talk lots but never actually produce anything of value, there are other considerations.
      - doorhammer 13y ago
        I think these points are specifically addressing bringing an ipad to meetings where you're less likely to be producing so much as consuming or discussing (most of the time).
        Silhouette 13y ago
        Right, but that suggests there are also desktop/laptop machines running "real Office" that the same people use for creating new material. Microsoft still make an awful lot of money serving that market. Meanwhile, the norms for selling tablet software are very different to traditional business software. ("What, you want me to pay TEN WHOLE DOLLARS for an app that's going to save me at least an hour every day? Are you crazy?!") Releasing a full office suite onto tablets is not a no-brainer decision in that context, and I'm not surprised the new CEO hasn't pushed the button yet. It seems unlikely that a tablet version would make anything like the revenues per user the traditional desktop version did. Perhaps MS can establish some sort of subscription SaaS model here, but I'm extremely sceptical about the long-time viability of that model as a replacement for traditional COTS software products. On the other hand, if a tablet version provided a decent viewing platform for people who do do more reading than writing, it could potentially damage desktop sales if those people would otherwise have been added into the site licence or similar for the full desktop suite but no longer feel they need to be because they can just use the tablet at their desks as well.
kyriakos 13y ago
office for ipad will cannibalize windows sales. unless the question is if microsoft is willing to sacrifice revenue from windows to earn more from office. and if they release office for ipad how long after will they release it for android ?
- mark-r 13y ago
  Even if they were successful, it's unlikely that they'd earn more from Office by being on the iPad. It's not going to sustain the prices that Microsoft is used to. This is their dilemma, they simply can't win no matter which way they go.
stcredzero 13y ago
What if someone released a "limited virtual machine" that included WINE running inside an emulator but only allowed you to install Office on it? Emulation performance concerns aside, it's actually possible to capture all the keystrokes coming from a bluetooth keyboard on iOS. (And get it in the store if you're sneaky enough.) It should be possible to do this. (I also have a scheme for dealing with the mouse UI.)
- YokoZar 13y ago
  I'm not sure an iPad would have enough computing power to run VM + QEMU + Wine + Office.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - stcredzero 13y ago
    You can leave off the VM, as it's redundant to QEMU. Also, there are emulation strategies that rewrite the machine language to the native ISA instead of interpreting. One of those that cached the translated code would be more appropriate than QEMU emulation. WINE Is Not an Emulator, it's more of a library. It would be hard, but it would be doable. EDIT: New iPads are supposed to be equivalent to a low end dual core laptop from a few years ago.
codeulike 13y ago
I stopped installing office on my PCs about 10 years ago, for the first few years replaced with OpenOffice/LibreOffice and more recently things like wikis and confluence and google docs. Its amazing how little it really matters. Most of the stuff I get sent by MS Office users I can interop with. But every parent in the country still thinks their kids need Office installed to do their homework. Occasionally you get people who have gone really over the top on the Word or Powerpoint template so that the thing is totally unreadable on any non-MS platform. I was thinking we need a campaign really - "Keep your document formatting simple" -- no one is impressed with logos in footers or really complicated tables within word or clever animations on powerpoint anymore ... if everyone stuck to the 80% of features that interop well we'd be much better off.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  "logos in footers" is now an advanced, "over-the-top" piece of formatting?
  - warmfuzzykitten 13y ago
    Yes.
  - codeulike 13y ago
    Yes. Twenty years ago when adding logos to a page layout was a minor technical challenge, you could show some professionalism by sticking your logo everywhere. It made it look expensive. These days it just makes it look like you're a Word Noob.

I imagine the strategy is that if you want Office on a tablet, you need to buy a Surface. Apparently it's not reason enough.

devx 13y ago
People don't buy whole devices for an app. Or at least not most people.
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  > People don't buy whole devices for an app. For the record, I've heard variants of the exact opposite argument for why "people will never switch from iOS to Android", or "I could never give up $APP on my iPhone". If Office really is that important to you, then yes, you might actually consider getting a Surface (tablet/laptop combo) instead of a Macbook and an iPad separately.
- Silhouette 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure that's not true, and many people do very much buy a device for one killer app. Look at games consoles, if the tablet market alone isn't convincing. However, I very much doubt anyone is going to buy a tablet-style device (of any brand) for this kind of application, because it's a silly kind of application to run on a tablet-style device.
- Guvante 13y ago
  What reasons do you believe people are buying devices for it not the applications on them? If you are putting the emphasis on app then I would point out that Office is used by almost as many people as Facebook, so an app is a bit of an over simplification.
gebe 13y ago
You get the full Office 2013 suite with most x86 tablets nowadays (which you won't when you buy a Surface oddly enough). For me that definitely played a part in my decision to get an Asus T100.

bananas 13y ago

Because it's an awful productivity device? It has no usable filesystem, poor integration between applications, awful input device support, a tiny screen and is impractical for office work. Yes I do own one for reference.

aaronblohowiak 13y ago
>impractical for office work yet a lot of people bring them to meetings as an alternative to an iPad. If you are mostly an email person, being able to open these attachments is useful.
- kyriakos 13y ago
  everytime i see people with ipads in meetings (same applies for android tablets) they usually use them as document viewers. why do you need a full office suite to do that?
  - Silhouette 13y ago
    ...use them as document viewers. why do you need a full office suite to do that? You don't, but unless the only people you work with are the kind who like to look at things and talk lots but never actually produce anything of value, there are other considerations.
    - doorhammer 13y ago
      I think these points are specifically addressing bringing an ipad to meetings where you're less likely to be producing so much as consuming or discussing (most of the time).
      - Silhouette 13y ago
        Right, but that suggests there are also desktop/laptop machines running "real Office" that the same people use for creating new material. Microsoft still make an awful lot of money serving that market. Meanwhile, the norms for selling tablet software are very different to traditional business software. ("What, you want me to pay TEN WHOLE DOLLARS for an app that's going to save me at least an hour every day? Are you crazy?!") Releasing a full office suite onto tablets is not a no-brainer decision in that context, and I'm not surprised the new CEO hasn't pushed the button yet. It seems unlikely that a tablet version would make anything like the revenues per user the traditional desktop version did. Perhaps MS can establish some sort of subscription SaaS model here, but I'm extremely sceptical about the long-time viability of that model as a replacement for traditional COTS software products. On the other hand, if a tablet version provided a decent viewing platform for people who do do more reading than writing, it could potentially damage desktop sales if those people would otherwise have been added into the site licence or similar for the full desktop suite but no longer feel they need to be because they can just use the tablet at their desks as well.

kyriakos 13y ago

office for ipad will cannibalize windows sales. unless the question is if microsoft is willing to sacrifice revenue from windows to earn more from office. and if they release office for ipad how long after will they release it for android ?

mark-r 13y ago
Even if they were successful, it's unlikely that they'd earn more from Office by being on the iPad. It's not going to sustain the prices that Microsoft is used to. This is their dilemma, they simply can't win no matter which way they go.

stcredzero 13y ago

What if someone released a "limited virtual machine" that included WINE running inside an emulator but only allowed you to install Office on it? Emulation performance concerns aside, it's actually possible to capture all the keystrokes coming from a bluetooth keyboard on iOS. (And get it in the store if you're sneaky enough.) It should be possible to do this. (I also have a scheme for dealing with the mouse UI.)

YokoZar 13y ago
I'm not sure an iPad would have enough computing power to run VM + QEMU + Wine + Office.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- stcredzero 13y ago
  You can leave off the VM, as it's redundant to QEMU. Also, there are emulation strategies that rewrite the machine language to the native ISA instead of interpreting. One of those that cached the translated code would be more appropriate than QEMU emulation. WINE Is Not an Emulator, it's more of a library. It would be hard, but it would be doable. EDIT: New iPads are supposed to be equivalent to a low end dual core laptop from a few years ago.

codeulike 13y ago

I stopped installing office on my PCs about 10 years ago, for the first few years replaced with OpenOffice/LibreOffice and more recently things like wikis and confluence and google docs. Its amazing how little it really matters. Most of the stuff I get sent by MS Office users I can interop with. But every parent in the country still thinks their kids need Office installed to do their homework. Occasionally you get people who have gone really over the top on the Word or Powerpoint template so that the thing is totally unreadable on any non-MS platform. I was thinking we need a campaign really - "Keep your document formatting simple" -- no one is impressed with logos in footers or really complicated tables within word or clever animations on powerpoint anymore ... if everyone stuck to the 80% of features that interop well we'd be much better off.

MichaelGG 13y ago
"logos in footers" is now an advanced, "over-the-top" piece of formatting?
- warmfuzzykitten 13y ago
  Yes.
- codeulike 13y ago
  Yes. Twenty years ago when adding logos to a page layout was a minor technical challenge, you could show some professionalism by sticking your logo everywhere. It made it look expensive. These days it just makes it look like you're a Word Noob.