11 ms·

Microsoft launches Office for iPad

328 points by msoliman 13y ago

zyadsherif 13y ago
Finally they've accepted the fact that they need to optimize to apple products, the Gates mentality has been blocking innovation in this area and this might be the breakthrough !
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  Huh? What does this have to do with Gates? Under Gates leadership MS has been developing software for Apple since the 90's. Edit: Fixed possible factual error.
  - chrisdevereux 13y ago
    They've released for Apple since basically forever. The Apple II shipped with Microsoft Basic for a while, IIRC.
    - rimantas 13y ago
      IIRC the MS Excel, a cornerstone of the MS Office was first released for Mac, and only later for Windows.
    - Dale1 13y ago
      And don't forget Explorer for Mac back in the day :)
  - bdcravens 13y ago
    If you listen to recent interviews, he still holds to the view that Microsoft has always been the true innovator with regard to tablets, and that's where serious business computing takes place.
    - pionar 13y ago
      Yes, Microsoft put out the first tablet computers (with Toshiba's help, I believe) in the early 2000s. The problem was that they got it very wrong.
      - k-mcgrady 13y ago
        >> "The problem was that they got it very wrong." I think that's a little unfair. The technology just wasn't ready yet. The one place they got it really wrong was with the OS but we didn't have WiFi yet (well most people didn't), we didn't have the kind of touch displays we have now, flash storage wasn't cost effective so they probably used HDD's. They had the general idea right but were too early. Unfortunately when the tech was ready MS was too slow.
      - com2kid 13y ago
        Actually, early 90s, and they were second! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_for_Pen_Computing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_for_Pen_Computing (Watch some of the youtube demos, really cool)
  - zyadsherif 13y ago
    While you are right, you might want to check this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GxLS7PqEbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GxLS7PqEbM Gates has attacked the iPad on every interview claiming that it's useless.
jmspring 13y ago
A review comparing the Apple apps (native and cloud), MSFT Office (native and cloud), and Google Docs compare would be interesting. Specifically usability (touch as well as external keyboard attached), on and offline modes. Playing up the ribbon in the presentation? Curious as ribbon really has triggered a love it or hate it reaction.
- msoliman 13y ago
  Absolutely true, I'd love to see that comparison.
- higherpurpose 13y ago
  Not just Google Docs, but Google's QuickOffice, which is the more feature rich office app for mobile from Google.
- jasonlotito 13y ago
  Considering Apple's Cloud apps are still in beta, that would be unfair. I can't edit my KeyNote presentation in the cloud at the moment, so yeah.
  - veidr 13y ago
    I don't think it would be unfair. If we're competing in the same space and you have a solid, mature app and all I have is a buggy beta, that means you're winning.
- ksk 13y ago
  > Curious as ribbon really has triggered a love it or hate it reaction. What do you hate about it? I find it to be just a bigger toolbar. The thing I care about the most is UI responsiveness, so Apple's iOS (upto 6, hate 7) UI has always impressed me with its fluidity. Google is web based which I hate the most. I cant understand how any sane person could use a shitty bloated web app over a high performance native application.
  - jmspring 13y ago
sz4kerto 13y ago
MS is changing, and make no mistake, this has started with Ballmer. If you watch(ed) the press conf, it's quite apparent. App store for Android, Office for iPad, AD for Azure.. quite nice stuff, that's what we expect from a software giant: just release stuff for everything, everywhere, and make things be able to work with each other nicely. Good to see that, competition is always good for the users, and Apple, Google and MS all seem to be quite strong on their fields (although Google is the most fashionable nowadays).
- mortenjorck 13y ago
  That Microsoft is broadening where and how customers can use Office is interesting. But what's shocking is that the first tablet-optimized version of Office is arriving not on Windows RT, but on iOS. That speaks volumes about the state of Windows today – and about how Nadella is under no illusions. Office for iPad may have started under Ballmer, but it's hard to imagine it getting this high a priority without his successor making what I'm sure was a tough call.
  - skrowl 13y ago
    You know that the RT versions of Microsoft Surface (and other RT tables) come with Office and have since they launched, right? https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/home-and-student/office-2013-rt-office-for-windows-tablet-devices-FX103278460.aspx https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/home-and-student/office-2...
    - yulaow 13y ago
      He stressed "tablet optimized version" The office on my surface is just the desktop one without any optimization for touch screens. Edit: and yes, I do not think that the "touch optimized features" they are describing on that site is enough for a real rt app.
    - aroch 13y ago
      Yes, and the RT version is a pile of poop and neither version performs particularly well in a touch-only environment
ApacheEcho 13y ago
We're back in the 80's again.
dalek2point3 13y ago
i wonder if it will keep getting regular updates and support too -- what product cycle will it be on? will it have clippy -- the office assistant? so many questions.
- coldpie 13y ago
  > will it have clippy -- the office assistant? Siri integration, obviously. We've come full-circle.
gum_ina_package 13y ago
I'm really hoping MS becomes a company that offers consistent and great experiences no matter who's walled garden you're in.
mikestew 13y ago
I wonder if they aren't a little late on this. I assume that I'm not the only one that found out I can get along just fine without Office on an iPad (or in my own personal case, get along just fine without Office at all). If the free Pages/Keynote/Numbers doesn't do it, I probably need a "real" computer anyway. That was always the real danger I saw for Microsoft as they delayed supporting iOS. Folks buy the devices anyway, despite their lack of Office. Then folks find out that they can do what they want to do despite that lack of Office. Maybe they've been using it by default, not because they really need it. Then Microsoft comes out with Office for iOS and there's a collective shrug and a "meh".
- encoderer 13y ago
  I think you're a little on the leading edge of this and, most importantly, it seems you don't use office heavily in your job.
- toddmorey 13y ago
  I agree with you. I think people have diversified. Office isn't going away, but their prolonged absence on other platforms opened some doors that they can't close again. I've seen much more openness to other document formats across industries. It's a bit like BYOD in enterprise, but at the document level. For example, it's been 5 years since I've been at a conference that requires slides to be PPT. They will probably always own the high end: advanced documents for the 20% of knowledge workers that need those features; custom Enterprise workflows, etc. But fewer and fewer people will ever require access to the Office Suite in any form.
- hrktb 13y ago
  I have yet to see any iOS app doing a reliable job in even just displaying Excel and Word documents. A long time ago I thought that LibreOffice or Pages were close enough, good enough to not need Office, but in reality there is still some random document once in a while that has the history messed up, or the layout hides a part of the text, or images are not at the right place. It might be 98% OK, but you can't always afford to give up on the 2% of information your are missing. Forcing Office users to give a sensible version of the files when sharing is the best solution, but having a native iOS version of Office for when that's not an option is invaluable.
msoliman 13y ago
Nadella said "Let me go to my iPad"! I bet that wasn't allowed at the time of Gates and Ballmer.
- yulaow 13y ago
  Well, Ballmer was famous for his enrage moments when someone show up at some meeting using an iphone [1] [1] http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2009/09/ballmer_spots_microsoft_employee_with_iphone_at_company_meeting.html?page=all http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2009/09/ba...
chrisdevereux 13y ago
The pricing structure is interesting: Free to view, requires an expensive Office 365 subscription to edit. Seems like they're missing an opportunity to drive adoption of Office as an online platform. Why would I want to publish using Office instead of Google Docs when I can't assume that people I send the Office doc to will be able to edit it? Sure, Office is better, but not better enough to overcome that. If it was free to edit, but $$$ to publish, Office 365 would be much more compelling. Especially since the situation w/r/t mobile looks much better than Google Docs. Edit: My point here is about network effects, not whether the subscription is worth it. Office previously benefited from them, but it's vulnerable as a cloud platform given the free alternatives from Google and even Apple.
- sremani 13y ago
  For a family of two, we are happily using about 3 subscriptions. You can add a friend or family for the un-used of the 5 subscriptions. Just one mail for invitation and they have it. The simplicity of the sharing the subscriptions made me a believer. There will always be people who will complain about the cost of subscription for both XBL and Office 365, but I think it is reasonably priced at least in the US.
- jmspring 13y ago
  There is a trend towards the "subscription model". We've seen it with Adobe's suite of apps, Microsoft has done that with Office recently -- Office 365 subscription is access to the native apps during the subscription period as well as access to the online versions -- it has been around awhile.
  - alsocasey 13y ago
    It seems a natural consequence of the popular continual-development, release-early-release-often model of software development.
  - sytelus 13y ago
    The trend toward subscription model is generally misguided. When you buy software, you are pre-paying the whole amount upfront. Plus your chance of defecting to competitor in near future (aka subscriptio "churn") is almost zero. Plus when you get new product with new features out, customer has a good justification to repeat the whole cycle again. Subscriptions are good for utility type services which are stable, has continuous consumption, has very low margins of profit and has much less competition. Adobe's subscription model is dumb. They are purely thriving on consumer mindshare but these prices are going to start hurting. Adobe's core business is ripe for breaking in.
amaks 13y ago
"Requires subscription for editing" This is lame, IMO, and so typical for MS.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  How is this lame? If you only require viewing docs on the iPad you can do that for free. That's fantastic and most people will probably be satisfied with that. A subscription is only to edit and I believe gives you access to Office 365. For software you use daily a subscription shouldn't be a problem.
  - mediaman 13y ago
    It's just the anti-corporate parade of users on HN who aren't used to paying for software. The majority of users here are wholly outside the target market. There's a huge universe of companies more than willing to pay for these, and it's about time that MS take advantage of re-establishing Office as a cross-device dominant platform for the everyday office worker, rather than losing its edge as an office platform because of silly hardware / software politics internal to their own organization.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      > It's just the anti-corporate parade of users on HN who aren't used to paying for software. No, they're in denial about the fact that they pay for their software, with their privacy, every minute they're on "free" services.
    - yaeger 13y ago
      >It's just the anti-corporate parade of users on HN who aren't used to paying for software. Close. We aren't used to keep paying for software with no end in sight. Don't know about you but I subscribe to things I know I will be using regularly. Like daily. Guess were office software falls? Not under the daily usage at home. Am I supposed to start writing word docs each week and mail them to my family just so I don't feel ripped of cause I am continuously paying for office? Just wait until the next Windows costs 100 bucks a year. Cause that is where this is headed and apparently people don't seem to have any problem overpaying Microsoft for software.
msoliman 13y ago
Excel and PowerPoint are live already. Excel: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for-ipad/id586683407?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for-ipad/id5... PowerPoint: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-powerpoint-for-ipad/id586449534?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-powerpoint-for-ipa...
- msoliman 13y ago
  And Word: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-word-for-ipad/id586447913?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-word-for-ipad/id58...
dudus 13y ago
I wonder if Apple gets a cut of the subscription pricing. I also bet any other company would not get away with a model like that. Apple requires that you make payments through their AppStore or in-app Payment systems so it can collect its cut. Good luck trying to publishing something with the same model on the App Store.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- RyJones 13y ago
  there is an in-app purchase for the subscription.
- bri3d 13y ago
  It looks like Office 365 subscriptions are available as an In-App Purchase (seen on the sidebar here : https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for-ipad/id586683407?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for-ipad/id5... ), so Apple get their cut of the revenue and Microsoft are above-the-board in terms of App Store regulations. Naturally if you buy a subscription from outside the app, Apple don't get a cut - that's how everything works and as long as you don't give the user a way to get to the non-Apple subscription payment system from inside the app, Apple is fine with that.
  - rrhyne 13y ago
    Sidebar: Apple does not allow you to provide a link to a website where you can market or upgrade a SaaS app that does not use the app store subscription model. Does anyone have any experience with denoting features which are locked to paid users without running afoul of this rule?
rafeed 13y ago
Wow. Office for iPad actually looks pretty great. This is great news for Apple and the Windows users out there who didn't want to use iPad for lack of official MS Office products.
rottyguy 13y ago
What would be nice if you can read and comment/highlight for free and edit for pay. I suspect one typical use case is to have someone send around a doc to solicit comments and incorporate them subsequent. In fact, this model kind of enforces that flow so you don't have multiple people editing it and forking the original.
iaskwhy 13y ago
Some comments here refer the potencially high cost of the membership for Office 365. It seems like there will be a new plan for $7/m ($70/y) supporting 2 devices[1]. Like the previous plan, it also seems to include 1h of Skype calls. [1] http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/13/announcing-office-365-personal-a-new-way-to-access-office-365/ http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/13/announcing-office-365-per...
be5invis 13y ago
Microsoft releases Office for iPad just looks like that Nintendo publishes Super Mario Bros on Xbox! So, are they going to discard Windows (|phone|tablet|...) platform and become a pure third-party? It reminds me of Sega.
- ams6110 13y ago
  At some point you have to decide whether the the perfect (everyone using Windows phones/tablets and MS Software) is the enemy of the good (a lot of people using MS Software). Microsoft has for whatever reason never hit the target with mobile platforms. I guess the Windows Phone is decent enough by some accounts but was just way too late to the party. So they can try to make money selling mobile software for a mobile platform that nobody uses, or they can just accept reality and sell the software on all platforms.
  - be5invis 13y ago
    In the console game world, softwares(games) can decide the fate of consoles. Dreamcast failed BEFORE PS2 is released, due to Final Fantasy X, XI and XII. Another example is that Xbox survived because of Halo. In my opnion, Office is the ace software of Microsoft. It is even the de-facto standard. Therefore Microsoft should keep them exclusive on their platform.
    - dublinben 13y ago
      Keeping Office off the iPad until now hasn't prevented millions of customers from buying them, or pushed any significant number of users to Windows 8 (RT) tablets instead. Microsoft's indispensable programs haven't been sorely missed for the last four years.
  - simonh 13y ago
    It's that or gradually become more and more irrelevant to a very large segment of the computing market. I think there more to this than just 'accepting their fate' to never be a successful mobile devices company. If their mobile software succeeds and becomes as near-essential as Office once was, that could well create a halo effect for their mobile platforms. After all if you use MS software every day on your phone or tablet, why not buy an MS phone or tablet next time you're in the market for one? Their first order of business in mobile is to become relevant again. Today took their best shot at that in a very long time.
LeicaLatte 13y ago
If it feel this expensive on iOS, this pricing has no chance on other platforms. And Google Docs is not going anywhere with this pricing for sure.
bane 13y ago
Before anybody thinks this is weird, or unusual. Microsoft has quite often been more pragmatic about the platform offerings for their office suite than elsewhere. After all, Office exists and has existed on Apple products for a very long time. It's more unusual that it hasn't been on the iProducts than anything.
- thematt 13y ago
  I may be remembering wrong, but isn't the fact that Office existed on the Mac for so long also a result of the deal that Microsoft and Apple struck back in the 90's? Microsoft would keep making Office for the Mac and in exchange Apple would drop it's patent suit against them.
  - bane 13y ago
    No, it's even older. Word 1.0 for Mac was released in '84 or '85 I think.
  - RyJones 13y ago
    I think you're confusing the $150 million dollar 'loan', the settlement of the lawsuits, and Office, which is reasonable confusion based on how unclear the whole thing was. http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html
  - mwfunk 13y ago
    No, Word and Excel started out on the Mac and came to Windows later. I think what you're referring to is, there was a deal in the '90s where Microsoft helped out Apple, which included investment and maintaining an Internet Explorer Mac port (this was a much bigger deal back then). This gave the company some breathing room. At the time Apple was circling the drain and everyone assumed that they would be out of business in a matter of years if not months. This was the same era as Microsoft's antitrust suits, so what Microsoft got out of it was a (very weak at the time) competitor that they could continue pointing to as evidence that they weren't a monopoly.
    - 13y ago
rayiner 13y ago
It goes to show a lot about the situation in Microsoft that they didn't manage to ship this last year for Surface RT, where it might have done the platform a lot of good.
encoderer 13y ago
This looks very well done. This is exciting. Honestly, I've almost entirely transitioned from Office to Google Docs. I could see this pulling me back in.
batoure 13y ago
It is with a certain amount of amusement that I note that this version of office (which looks really cool) is significantly more optimized for touch than the version of office that I have for my MS Surface. That is some what disappointing.
- outside1234 13y ago
  No it's not. Its encouraging - Microsoft is putting their muscle where the market share is, not based on some religious belief.
  - batoure 13y ago
    Nice... But lets look at the facts. 180 million ipads (of any generation, not all will be able to run this new version of office) currently in circulation. 110 million windows 8 PC's active as of sept 2013.... so yes I agree that microsoft should put their money where their market share is... THEIR market share not apple's, with the decline of xp that number of winodws 8 users is expected to sky rocket... so ya it would be nice to have an updated consistent version of office. http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/there-are-now-over-110-million-windows-8-users http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/there-are-now-over-110-mil... http://ipod.about.com/od/ipadmodelsandterms/f/ipad-sales-to-date.htm http://ipod.about.com/od/ipadmodelsandterms/f/ipad-sales-to-...
    - throwawaymsft 13y ago
      But what is a Windows 8 PC? Just because a PC is sold with Win8 (because prior versions aren't available) doesn't mean people are using it as such. They had to bring back "boot to desktop" as a configuration option, and 60% of win8 machines launch metro less than once a day (https://www.soluto.com/reports https://www.soluto.com/reports).
      - batoure 13y ago
        so case and point, metro is a pretty cool in function but lacks the apps to make it truly useful... So maybe the company trying to push it should make some. also you cited a link to a 404 page.... and additionally only someone not on windows 8 would believe a statistic like that its not possible to use many of the features of the OS without going into the metro interface... I am hoping that maybe your quote is that "60% of windows 8 machines launch metro apps less than once a day" but that seems like a statistic without a method of measure...
vmarsy 13y ago
I'm wondering what would happen if, without paying for the office 365 subscription, I try to edit a document stored in the cloud. Will it open a Safari tab with the free office.com online Word/Excel/Powerpoint ? In other words : Is there an "Open with Word Online" button for non office 365 subscribers?
- quanpod 13y ago
  full disclosure: I work for Microsoft on the Office Online team I do not believe that feature is in Office for iPad and you should be able to point your browser to OneDrive.com/office.com to get to your documents using Word/Excel/PowerPoint/OneNote Online in the meantime. This is a really interesting idea though so I'll bring it up with the team, thanks!
eitally 13y ago
The issue I find is that spreadsheets are really unpleasant to work with on a tablet (or any touch display). Given that, things like QuickOffice or similar work mostly just fine for viewing.
the_watcher 13y ago
To me, there needs to be a step change in information input for the Office Suite to be something I'd use on an iPad. Word processing and speadsheet manipulation are so text intensive. Interested to try it out though.
Pxtl 13y ago
They missed the competition for IE completely and were way too late with IE7. They missed the competition from the mobile world and dragged their feet a bit with WP7. They're not going to lose Office too, which is their biggest cash-cow. Without Office, entire corporations will no longer see Microsoft as a "must-have" company. So yeah, iPad.
plg 13y ago
If it means we will have an actual word processor on iOS, all the better. I for one am deeply disappointed with the direction Apple has taken with iWork. Not least of which is the (a) removal of features and (b) incompatibility with recent versions of their own software [this has rendered large portions of my documents unreadable]
- gress 13y ago
  They have put the removed features back in.
dman 13y ago
Does this mean Office for linux is in the works? At least for the corporate distros like Redhat, Suse and Ubuntu?
BadassFractal 13y ago
Wonder how astroturfed this comment section is.
footpath 13y ago
Looks like the non-tablet iPhone/Android phone versions of Office Mobile have gone free to use as well, forgoing the previous requirement of an active Office 365 subscription: http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/27/announcing-the-office-you-love-now-on-the-ipad/ http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/27/announcing-the-office-you...
mark_l_watson 13y ago
I think that it is cool for Microsoft to release Office 360 for OS X and iPad. I do a lot of writing (I am pretty much addicted to writing books). I use my iPad for lots of casual writing using a good text editor and markdown files in Dropbox (target is leanpub.com). For some writing I like having Pages on both iOS and OS X with iCloud storage. If Office 360 ends up being a compelling product for iPad and my MacBook Air, then the $99/year is a no-brainer decision.
- codeulike 13y ago
  Is Office 360 a version of Office 365 for the XBox 360?
mattkevan 13y ago
It's great to see Office on iPad - hopefully it'll encourage Google to improve their terrible Drive app. Our company moved entirely to Google Docs about 5 years ago. Being sent a Word file is like being handed a CD ROM - a brief moment for a 'Oh, one of those' mental gear change and a few minutes rummaging in the dead tech box for an external drive. Or in Office's case something that can reliably parse the file
codeulike 13y ago
While we're talking about Microsoft, it strikes me that of the big players in 2014, Microsoft are the most diversified, even if they're no longer in the lead in most areas. Will that diversification (Office, Windows, Enterprise, Azure, XBox, Phones) give them more longevity? Or are they really in danger of fading into insignificance?
DigitalSea 13y ago
Finally. Yes, there are alternatives to Microsoft Office for the iPad, but make no mistake, none of them even come close to that of Microsoft Office. I just downloaded Word and Excel, couldn't find a flaw in either of them. The subscription part for editing sucks, but subscriptions are fairly cheap. We are witnessing a new Microsoft that began when new CEO Satya Nadella took the helm. This is his first of many acts to turn the company around, instead of the previous closed door approach Balmer preferred. It's good to see Satya doesn't appear to be full brainwashed by the Microsoft cool-aid. This isn't 1998, Windows is no longer the dominant platform and it makes sense to open up your products to other platforms, especially given Microsoft's failure to break ground in the mobile market. Now all Satya needs to do is bring back the start menu in Windows 9, get rid of that horrid Metro tile interface for non touch devices (or at the very least give users the option of the new Metro interface or classic desktop) and I'll be ecstatic.
- jsolson 13y ago
  You realize that this had to have been in development for months if not years prior to this release, right?
  - randomafrican 13y ago
    There are been rumours saying that it has been ready for months if not years. The decision to release it is Nadella's.
- yaeger 13y ago
  >couldn't find a flaw in either of them. I have. It's just a viewer for office formats. If that subscription model takes be ready for Windows 9 to come as an Ad Supported Free Version and a paid version that costs 100 bucks a year cause you were so onboard with continuously paying for office for years on end.
dsaravel 13y ago
$119 (in Australia, at least) is too much for me to try editing capabilities. How about you keep the price but only prevent me from saving? I need to know how it feels editing the documents before I commit to such price.
- dave84 13y ago
  The Office 365 website offers a free months trial.
  - dsaravel 13y ago
    Ok, but it may be completely different from using the actual app. For example, GMail app is way slower and irresponsive in the iPad than accessing directly from gmail.com in Safari.
    - quanpod 13y ago
      The trial should let you download and use the real app - not sure if the confusion was because the poster above said "Office 365 website"
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tjmc 13y ago
Question - does the equation editor work in Word? When viewing Word docs on iOS previously I could only see about 70% of my mechanical engineering lab reports without it.
robomartin 13y ago
As a long time MS customer their pricing strategies and product segmentation still bother the heck out of me. I get it, but I don't. I wish they'd flatten the offering to one OS and one Office suite and be done with it. Here's what's happening with the tablet versions of Office: A qualifying Office 365 subscription is required to edit and create documents. Qualifying plans include: Office 365 Home $99.99 PER YEAR Office 365 Small Business Premium $150.00 per user per year Office 365 Midsize Business $180.00 per user per year Office 365 E3 and E4 (Enterprise and Government) $264.00 per user per year Office 365 Education A3 and A4 Students: $36.00 per user per year Teachers: $72.00 per user per year Office 365 Pro Plus $????? Office 365 University Same as educational license? Not sure how to think about this. If I had to pay for my Office 2003 and 2007 Office Pro legal licenses every year it'd amount to a large pile of money. I don't have any issues licensing software at all. You could buy a couple of top of the line German cars with the various licenses for engineering and office software we have. That said, monthly subscriptions I avoid like the plague. Why? All is fine while business is good. When things aren't great subscriptions bleed much-needed capital. If cancelling your subscriptions means taking away such things as Office and email you are screwed and have to take money from some other part of the business to keep them going. That's why I've always run our own email servers and always purchased licenses of software like Office Pro. We don't have to update the software every year. When things are good --and if it makes sense-- you upgrade. During lean times you have the option to not spend any money on upgrades and still have full usage of your software. Having experienced this a couple of times over the years I don't like the idea of any mission critical service being tied to a monthly per-user licence, it's a bad idea. Beyond that, I wish MS would stop this nonsense of having so many layers to their products. One Windows and one Office, none of this "Home", "Home Premium", "Pro", "Pro Plus", "Really Really Pro Premium Plus", etc.
chmars 13y ago
Why does Microsoft offer not only the single apps but also one app with all single apps included? That seems to be rather unusual for iOS apps. As a side note, App Store search is still lacking: Looking for 'microsoft office' did not result in a single hit related to actual apps from Microsoft. Googling for App Store links to the four new apps was easier in the end …
arrc 13y ago
They've also started using open-source technologies like Node.js and javascript (must be typescript). Microsoft is finally adopting open source with open arms. source: http://inessential.com/2014/02/04/azure_takes_over http://inessential.com/2014/02/04/azure_takes_over
- romanovcode 13y ago
  Also released MVC/WebApi/EntityFramework to public was pretty big deal.
beyondcompute 13y ago
When will Microsoft launch it's own iPad (or a product as good as it). "Launching something for concurrents' successful platform". That's weird.
orkoden 13y ago
The Microsoft Office Apps don't integrate well with other iOS apps. There's no open-in in other apps and no support for AirPrint or other printing options.
tmarman 13y ago
I was really hoping the "developers" portion would announce a Xamarin acquisition. Maybe at BUILD, but curiously as this talk was going on I got an email from Xamarin telling me to visit them at BUILD.

328 points by msoliman 13y ago

Finally they've accepted the fact that they need to optimize to apple products, the Gates mentality has been blocking innovation in this area and this might be the breakthrough !

k-mcgrady 13y ago
Huh? What does this have to do with Gates? Under Gates leadership MS has been developing software for Apple since the 90's. Edit: Fixed possible factual error.
- chrisdevereux 13y ago
  They've released for Apple since basically forever. The Apple II shipped with Microsoft Basic for a while, IIRC.
  - rimantas 13y ago
    IIRC the MS Excel, a cornerstone of the MS Office was first released for Mac, and only later for Windows.
  - Dale1 13y ago
    And don't forget Explorer for Mac back in the day :)
- bdcravens 13y ago
  If you listen to recent interviews, he still holds to the view that Microsoft has always been the true innovator with regard to tablets, and that's where serious business computing takes place.
  - pionar 13y ago
    Yes, Microsoft put out the first tablet computers (with Toshiba's help, I believe) in the early 2000s. The problem was that they got it very wrong.
    - k-mcgrady 13y ago
      >> "The problem was that they got it very wrong." I think that's a little unfair. The technology just wasn't ready yet. The one place they got it really wrong was with the OS but we didn't have WiFi yet (well most people didn't), we didn't have the kind of touch displays we have now, flash storage wasn't cost effective so they probably used HDD's. They had the general idea right but were too early. Unfortunately when the tech was ready MS was too slow.
    - com2kid 13y ago
      Actually, early 90s, and they were second! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_for_Pen_Computing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_for_Pen_Computing (Watch some of the youtube demos, really cool)
- zyadsherif 13y ago
  While you are right, you might want to check this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GxLS7PqEbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GxLS7PqEbM Gates has attacked the iPad on every interview claiming that it's useless.

jmspring 13y ago

A review comparing the Apple apps (native and cloud), MSFT Office (native and cloud), and Google Docs compare would be interesting. Specifically usability (touch as well as external keyboard attached), on and offline modes. Playing up the ribbon in the presentation? Curious as ribbon really has triggered a love it or hate it reaction.

msoliman 13y ago
Absolutely true, I'd love to see that comparison.
higherpurpose 13y ago
Not just Google Docs, but Google's QuickOffice, which is the more feature rich office app for mobile from Google.
jasonlotito 13y ago
Considering Apple's Cloud apps are still in beta, that would be unfair. I can't edit my KeyNote presentation in the cloud at the moment, so yeah.
- veidr 13y ago
  I don't think it would be unfair. If we're competing in the same space and you have a solid, mature app and all I have is a buggy beta, that means you're winning.
ksk 13y ago
> Curious as ribbon really has triggered a love it or hate it reaction. What do you hate about it? I find it to be just a bigger toolbar. The thing I care about the most is UI responsiveness, so Apple's iOS (upto 6, hate 7) UI has always impressed me with its fluidity. Google is web based which I hate the most. I cant understand how any sane person could use a shitty bloated web app over a high performance native application.
- jmspring 13y ago

sz4kerto 13y ago

MS is changing, and make no mistake, this has started with Ballmer. If you watch(ed) the press conf, it's quite apparent. App store for Android, Office for iPad, AD for Azure.. quite nice stuff, that's what we expect from a software giant: just release stuff for everything, everywhere, and make things be able to work with each other nicely. Good to see that, competition is always good for the users, and Apple, Google and MS all seem to be quite strong on their fields (although Google is the most fashionable nowadays).

mortenjorck 13y ago
That Microsoft is broadening where and how customers can use Office is interesting. But what's shocking is that the first tablet-optimized version of Office is arriving not on Windows RT, but on iOS. That speaks volumes about the state of Windows today – and about how Nadella is under no illusions. Office for iPad may have started under Ballmer, but it's hard to imagine it getting this high a priority without his successor making what I'm sure was a tough call.
- skrowl 13y ago
  You know that the RT versions of Microsoft Surface (and other RT tables) come with Office and have since they launched, right? https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/home-and-student/office-2013-rt-office-for-windows-tablet-devices-FX103278460.aspx https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/home-and-student/office-2...
  - yulaow 13y ago
    He stressed "tablet optimized version" The office on my surface is just the desktop one without any optimization for touch screens. Edit: and yes, I do not think that the "touch optimized features" they are describing on that site is enough for a real rt app.
  - aroch 13y ago
    Yes, and the RT version is a pile of poop and neither version performs particularly well in a touch-only environment

ApacheEcho 13y ago

We're back in the 80's again.

dalek2point3 13y ago

i wonder if it will keep getting regular updates and support too -- what product cycle will it be on? will it have clippy -- the office assistant? so many questions.

coldpie 13y ago
> will it have clippy -- the office assistant? Siri integration, obviously. We've come full-circle.

gum_ina_package 13y ago

I'm really hoping MS becomes a company that offers consistent and great experiences no matter who's walled garden you're in.

mikestew 13y ago

I wonder if they aren't a little late on this. I assume that I'm not the only one that found out I can get along just fine without Office on an iPad (or in my own personal case, get along just fine without Office at all). If the free Pages/Keynote/Numbers doesn't do it, I probably need a "real" computer anyway. That was always the real danger I saw for Microsoft as they delayed supporting iOS. Folks buy the devices anyway, despite their lack of Office. Then folks find out that they can do what they want to do despite that lack of Office. Maybe they've been using it by default, not because they really need it. Then Microsoft comes out with Office for iOS and there's a collective shrug and a "meh".

encoderer 13y ago
I think you're a little on the leading edge of this and, most importantly, it seems you don't use office heavily in your job.
toddmorey 13y ago
I agree with you. I think people have diversified. Office isn't going away, but their prolonged absence on other platforms opened some doors that they can't close again. I've seen much more openness to other document formats across industries. It's a bit like BYOD in enterprise, but at the document level. For example, it's been 5 years since I've been at a conference that requires slides to be PPT. They will probably always own the high end: advanced documents for the 20% of knowledge workers that need those features; custom Enterprise workflows, etc. But fewer and fewer people will ever require access to the Office Suite in any form.
hrktb 13y ago
I have yet to see any iOS app doing a reliable job in even just displaying Excel and Word documents. A long time ago I thought that LibreOffice or Pages were close enough, good enough to not need Office, but in reality there is still some random document once in a while that has the history messed up, or the layout hides a part of the text, or images are not at the right place. It might be 98% OK, but you can't always afford to give up on the 2% of information your are missing. Forcing Office users to give a sensible version of the files when sharing is the best solution, but having a native iOS version of Office for when that's not an option is invaluable.

msoliman 13y ago

Nadella said "Let me go to my iPad"! I bet that wasn't allowed at the time of Gates and Ballmer.

yulaow 13y ago
Well, Ballmer was famous for his enrage moments when someone show up at some meeting using an iphone [1] [1] http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2009/09/ballmer_spots_microsoft_employee_with_iphone_at_company_meeting.html?page=all http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2009/09/ba...

chrisdevereux 13y ago

The pricing structure is interesting: Free to view, requires an expensive Office 365 subscription to edit. Seems like they're missing an opportunity to drive adoption of Office as an online platform. Why would I want to publish using Office instead of Google Docs when I can't assume that people I send the Office doc to will be able to edit it? Sure, Office is better, but not better enough to overcome that. If it was free to edit, but $$$ to publish, Office 365 would be much more compelling. Especially since the situation w/r/t mobile looks much better than Google Docs. Edit: My point here is about network effects, not whether the subscription is worth it. Office previously benefited from them, but it's vulnerable as a cloud platform given the free alternatives from Google and even Apple.

sremani 13y ago
For a family of two, we are happily using about 3 subscriptions. You can add a friend or family for the un-used of the 5 subscriptions. Just one mail for invitation and they have it. The simplicity of the sharing the subscriptions made me a believer. There will always be people who will complain about the cost of subscription for both XBL and Office 365, but I think it is reasonably priced at least in the US.
jmspring 13y ago
There is a trend towards the "subscription model". We've seen it with Adobe's suite of apps, Microsoft has done that with Office recently -- Office 365 subscription is access to the native apps during the subscription period as well as access to the online versions -- it has been around awhile.
- alsocasey 13y ago
  It seems a natural consequence of the popular continual-development, release-early-release-often model of software development.
- sytelus 13y ago
  The trend toward subscription model is generally misguided. When you buy software, you are pre-paying the whole amount upfront. Plus your chance of defecting to competitor in near future (aka subscriptio "churn") is almost zero. Plus when you get new product with new features out, customer has a good justification to repeat the whole cycle again. Subscriptions are good for utility type services which are stable, has continuous consumption, has very low margins of profit and has much less competition. Adobe's subscription model is dumb. They are purely thriving on consumer mindshare but these prices are going to start hurting. Adobe's core business is ripe for breaking in.

amaks 13y ago

"Requires subscription for editing" This is lame, IMO, and so typical for MS.

k-mcgrady 13y ago
How is this lame? If you only require viewing docs on the iPad you can do that for free. That's fantastic and most people will probably be satisfied with that. A subscription is only to edit and I believe gives you access to Office 365. For software you use daily a subscription shouldn't be a problem.
- mediaman 13y ago
  It's just the anti-corporate parade of users on HN who aren't used to paying for software. The majority of users here are wholly outside the target market. There's a huge universe of companies more than willing to pay for these, and it's about time that MS take advantage of re-establishing Office as a cross-device dominant platform for the everyday office worker, rather than losing its edge as an office platform because of silly hardware / software politics internal to their own organization.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    > It's just the anti-corporate parade of users on HN who aren't used to paying for software. No, they're in denial about the fact that they pay for their software, with their privacy, every minute they're on "free" services.
  - yaeger 13y ago
    >It's just the anti-corporate parade of users on HN who aren't used to paying for software. Close. We aren't used to keep paying for software with no end in sight. Don't know about you but I subscribe to things I know I will be using regularly. Like daily. Guess were office software falls? Not under the daily usage at home. Am I supposed to start writing word docs each week and mail them to my family just so I don't feel ripped of cause I am continuously paying for office? Just wait until the next Windows costs 100 bucks a year. Cause that is where this is headed and apparently people don't seem to have any problem overpaying Microsoft for software.

msoliman 13y ago

Excel and PowerPoint are live already. Excel: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for-ipad/id586683407?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for-ipad/id5... PowerPoint: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-powerpoint-for-ipad/id586449534?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-powerpoint-for-ipa...

msoliman 13y ago
And Word: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-word-for-ipad/id586447913?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-word-for-ipad/id58...

dudus 13y ago

I wonder if Apple gets a cut of the subscription pricing. I also bet any other company would not get away with a model like that. Apple requires that you make payments through their AppStore or in-app Payment systems so it can collect its cut. Good luck trying to publishing something with the same model on the App Store.

deleted 13y ago
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RyJones 13y ago
there is an in-app purchase for the subscription.
bri3d 13y ago
It looks like Office 365 subscriptions are available as an In-App Purchase (seen on the sidebar here : https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for-ipad/id586683407?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for-ipad/id5... ), so Apple get their cut of the revenue and Microsoft are above-the-board in terms of App Store regulations. Naturally if you buy a subscription from outside the app, Apple don't get a cut - that's how everything works and as long as you don't give the user a way to get to the non-Apple subscription payment system from inside the app, Apple is fine with that.
- rrhyne 13y ago
  Sidebar: Apple does not allow you to provide a link to a website where you can market or upgrade a SaaS app that does not use the app store subscription model. Does anyone have any experience with denoting features which are locked to paid users without running afoul of this rule?

rafeed 13y ago

Wow. Office for iPad actually looks pretty great. This is great news for Apple and the Windows users out there who didn't want to use iPad for lack of official MS Office products.

rottyguy 13y ago

What would be nice if you can read and comment/highlight for free and edit for pay. I suspect one typical use case is to have someone send around a doc to solicit comments and incorporate them subsequent. In fact, this model kind of enforces that flow so you don't have multiple people editing it and forking the original.

iaskwhy 13y ago

Some comments here refer the potencially high cost of the membership for Office 365. It seems like there will be a new plan for $7/m ($70/y) supporting 2 devices[1]. Like the previous plan, it also seems to include 1h of Skype calls. [1] http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/13/announcing-office-365-personal-a-new-way-to-access-office-365/ http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/13/announcing-office-365-per...

be5invis 13y ago

Microsoft releases Office for iPad just looks like that Nintendo publishes Super Mario Bros on Xbox! So, are they going to discard Windows (|phone|tablet|...) platform and become a pure third-party? It reminds me of Sega.

ams6110 13y ago
At some point you have to decide whether the the perfect (everyone using Windows phones/tablets and MS Software) is the enemy of the good (a lot of people using MS Software). Microsoft has for whatever reason never hit the target with mobile platforms. I guess the Windows Phone is decent enough by some accounts but was just way too late to the party. So they can try to make money selling mobile software for a mobile platform that nobody uses, or they can just accept reality and sell the software on all platforms.
- be5invis 13y ago
  In the console game world, softwares(games) can decide the fate of consoles. Dreamcast failed BEFORE PS2 is released, due to Final Fantasy X, XI and XII. Another example is that Xbox survived because of Halo. In my opnion, Office is the ace software of Microsoft. It is even the de-facto standard. Therefore Microsoft should keep them exclusive on their platform.
  - dublinben 13y ago
    Keeping Office off the iPad until now hasn't prevented millions of customers from buying them, or pushed any significant number of users to Windows 8 (RT) tablets instead. Microsoft's indispensable programs haven't been sorely missed for the last four years.
- simonh 13y ago
  It's that or gradually become more and more irrelevant to a very large segment of the computing market. I think there more to this than just 'accepting their fate' to never be a successful mobile devices company. If their mobile software succeeds and becomes as near-essential as Office once was, that could well create a halo effect for their mobile platforms. After all if you use MS software every day on your phone or tablet, why not buy an MS phone or tablet next time you're in the market for one? Their first order of business in mobile is to become relevant again. Today took their best shot at that in a very long time.

LeicaLatte 13y ago

If it feel this expensive on iOS, this pricing has no chance on other platforms. And Google Docs is not going anywhere with this pricing for sure.

bane 13y ago

Before anybody thinks this is weird, or unusual. Microsoft has quite often been more pragmatic about the platform offerings for their office suite than elsewhere. After all, Office exists and has existed on Apple products for a very long time. It's more unusual that it hasn't been on the iProducts than anything.

thematt 13y ago
I may be remembering wrong, but isn't the fact that Office existed on the Mac for so long also a result of the deal that Microsoft and Apple struck back in the 90's? Microsoft would keep making Office for the Mac and in exchange Apple would drop it's patent suit against them.
- bane 13y ago
  No, it's even older. Word 1.0 for Mac was released in '84 or '85 I think.
- RyJones 13y ago
  I think you're confusing the $150 million dollar 'loan', the settlement of the lawsuits, and Office, which is reasonable confusion based on how unclear the whole thing was. http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html
- mwfunk 13y ago
  No, Word and Excel started out on the Mac and came to Windows later. I think what you're referring to is, there was a deal in the '90s where Microsoft helped out Apple, which included investment and maintaining an Internet Explorer Mac port (this was a much bigger deal back then). This gave the company some breathing room. At the time Apple was circling the drain and everyone assumed that they would be out of business in a matter of years if not months. This was the same era as Microsoft's antitrust suits, so what Microsoft got out of it was a (very weak at the time) competitor that they could continue pointing to as evidence that they weren't a monopoly.
  - 13y ago

rayiner 13y ago

It goes to show a lot about the situation in Microsoft that they didn't manage to ship this last year for Surface RT, where it might have done the platform a lot of good.

encoderer 13y ago

This looks very well done. This is exciting. Honestly, I've almost entirely transitioned from Office to Google Docs. I could see this pulling me back in.

batoure 13y ago

It is with a certain amount of amusement that I note that this version of office (which looks really cool) is significantly more optimized for touch than the version of office that I have for my MS Surface. That is some what disappointing.

outside1234 13y ago
No it's not. Its encouraging - Microsoft is putting their muscle where the market share is, not based on some religious belief.
- batoure 13y ago
  Nice... But lets look at the facts. 180 million ipads (of any generation, not all will be able to run this new version of office) currently in circulation. 110 million windows 8 PC's active as of sept 2013.... so yes I agree that microsoft should put their money where their market share is... THEIR market share not apple's, with the decline of xp that number of winodws 8 users is expected to sky rocket... so ya it would be nice to have an updated consistent version of office. http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/there-are-now-over-110-million-windows-8-users http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/there-are-now-over-110-mil... http://ipod.about.com/od/ipadmodelsandterms/f/ipad-sales-to-date.htm http://ipod.about.com/od/ipadmodelsandterms/f/ipad-sales-to-...
  - throwawaymsft 13y ago
    But what is a Windows 8 PC? Just because a PC is sold with Win8 (because prior versions aren't available) doesn't mean people are using it as such. They had to bring back "boot to desktop" as a configuration option, and 60% of win8 machines launch metro less than once a day (https://www.soluto.com/reports https://www.soluto.com/reports).
    - batoure 13y ago
      so case and point, metro is a pretty cool in function but lacks the apps to make it truly useful... So maybe the company trying to push it should make some. also you cited a link to a 404 page.... and additionally only someone not on windows 8 would believe a statistic like that its not possible to use many of the features of the OS without going into the metro interface... I am hoping that maybe your quote is that "60% of windows 8 machines launch metro apps less than once a day" but that seems like a statistic without a method of measure...

vmarsy 13y ago

I'm wondering what would happen if, without paying for the office 365 subscription, I try to edit a document stored in the cloud. Will it open a Safari tab with the free office.com online Word/Excel/Powerpoint ? In other words : Is there an "Open with Word Online" button for non office 365 subscribers?

quanpod 13y ago
full disclosure: I work for Microsoft on the Office Online team I do not believe that feature is in Office for iPad and you should be able to point your browser to OneDrive.com/office.com to get to your documents using Word/Excel/PowerPoint/OneNote Online in the meantime. This is a really interesting idea though so I'll bring it up with the team, thanks!

eitally 13y ago

The issue I find is that spreadsheets are really unpleasant to work with on a tablet (or any touch display). Given that, things like QuickOffice or similar work mostly just fine for viewing.

the_watcher 13y ago

To me, there needs to be a step change in information input for the Office Suite to be something I'd use on an iPad. Word processing and speadsheet manipulation are so text intensive. Interested to try it out though.

Pxtl 13y ago

They missed the competition for IE completely and were way too late with IE7. They missed the competition from the mobile world and dragged their feet a bit with WP7. They're not going to lose Office too, which is their biggest cash-cow. Without Office, entire corporations will no longer see Microsoft as a "must-have" company. So yeah, iPad.

plg 13y ago

If it means we will have an actual word processor on iOS, all the better. I for one am deeply disappointed with the direction Apple has taken with iWork. Not least of which is the (a) removal of features and (b) incompatibility with recent versions of their own software [this has rendered large portions of my documents unreadable]

gress 13y ago
They have put the removed features back in.

dman 13y ago

Does this mean Office for linux is in the works? At least for the corporate distros like Redhat, Suse and Ubuntu?

BadassFractal 13y ago

Wonder how astroturfed this comment section is.

footpath 13y ago

Looks like the non-tablet iPhone/Android phone versions of Office Mobile have gone free to use as well, forgoing the previous requirement of an active Office 365 subscription: http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/27/announcing-the-office-you-love-now-on-the-ipad/ http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/27/announcing-the-office-you...

mark_l_watson 13y ago

I think that it is cool for Microsoft to release Office 360 for OS X and iPad. I do a lot of writing (I am pretty much addicted to writing books). I use my iPad for lots of casual writing using a good text editor and markdown files in Dropbox (target is leanpub.com). For some writing I like having Pages on both iOS and OS X with iCloud storage. If Office 360 ends up being a compelling product for iPad and my MacBook Air, then the $99/year is a no-brainer decision.

codeulike 13y ago
Is Office 360 a version of Office 365 for the XBox 360?

mattkevan 13y ago

It's great to see Office on iPad - hopefully it'll encourage Google to improve their terrible Drive app. Our company moved entirely to Google Docs about 5 years ago. Being sent a Word file is like being handed a CD ROM - a brief moment for a 'Oh, one of those' mental gear change and a few minutes rummaging in the dead tech box for an external drive. Or in Office's case something that can reliably parse the file

codeulike 13y ago

While we're talking about Microsoft, it strikes me that of the big players in 2014, Microsoft are the most diversified, even if they're no longer in the lead in most areas. Will that diversification (Office, Windows, Enterprise, Azure, XBox, Phones) give them more longevity? Or are they really in danger of fading into insignificance?

DigitalSea 13y ago

Finally. Yes, there are alternatives to Microsoft Office for the iPad, but make no mistake, none of them even come close to that of Microsoft Office. I just downloaded Word and Excel, couldn't find a flaw in either of them. The subscription part for editing sucks, but subscriptions are fairly cheap. We are witnessing a new Microsoft that began when new CEO Satya Nadella took the helm. This is his first of many acts to turn the company around, instead of the previous closed door approach Balmer preferred. It's good to see Satya doesn't appear to be full brainwashed by the Microsoft cool-aid. This isn't 1998, Windows is no longer the dominant platform and it makes sense to open up your products to other platforms, especially given Microsoft's failure to break ground in the mobile market. Now all Satya needs to do is bring back the start menu in Windows 9, get rid of that horrid Metro tile interface for non touch devices (or at the very least give users the option of the new Metro interface or classic desktop) and I'll be ecstatic.

jsolson 13y ago
You realize that this had to have been in development for months if not years prior to this release, right?
- randomafrican 13y ago
  There are been rumours saying that it has been ready for months if not years. The decision to release it is Nadella's.
yaeger 13y ago
>couldn't find a flaw in either of them. I have. It's just a viewer for office formats. If that subscription model takes be ready for Windows 9 to come as an Ad Supported Free Version and a paid version that costs 100 bucks a year cause you were so onboard with continuously paying for office for years on end.

dsaravel 13y ago

$119 (in Australia, at least) is too much for me to try editing capabilities. How about you keep the price but only prevent me from saving? I need to know how it feels editing the documents before I commit to such price.

dave84 13y ago
The Office 365 website offers a free months trial.
- dsaravel 13y ago
  Ok, but it may be completely different from using the actual app. For example, GMail app is way slower and irresponsive in the iPad than accessing directly from gmail.com in Safari.
  - quanpod 13y ago
    The trial should let you download and use the real app - not sure if the confusion was because the poster above said "Office 365 website"

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tjmc 13y ago

Question - does the equation editor work in Word? When viewing Word docs on iOS previously I could only see about 70% of my mechanical engineering lab reports without it.

robomartin 13y ago

As a long time MS customer their pricing strategies and product segmentation still bother the heck out of me. I get it, but I don't. I wish they'd flatten the offering to one OS and one Office suite and be done with it. Here's what's happening with the tablet versions of Office: A qualifying Office 365 subscription is required to edit and create documents. Qualifying plans include: Office 365 Home $99.99 PER YEAR Office 365 Small Business Premium $150.00 per user per year Office 365 Midsize Business $180.00 per user per year Office 365 E3 and E4 (Enterprise and Government) $264.00 per user per year Office 365 Education A3 and A4 Students: $36.00 per user per year Teachers: $72.00 per user per year Office 365 Pro Plus $????? Office 365 University Same as educational license? Not sure how to think about this. If I had to pay for my Office 2003 and 2007 Office Pro legal licenses every year it'd amount to a large pile of money. I don't have any issues licensing software at all. You could buy a couple of top of the line German cars with the various licenses for engineering and office software we have. That said, monthly subscriptions I avoid like the plague. Why? All is fine while business is good. When things aren't great subscriptions bleed much-needed capital. If cancelling your subscriptions means taking away such things as Office and email you are screwed and have to take money from some other part of the business to keep them going. That's why I've always run our own email servers and always purchased licenses of software like Office Pro. We don't have to update the software every year. When things are good --and if it makes sense-- you upgrade. During lean times you have the option to not spend any money on upgrades and still have full usage of your software. Having experienced this a couple of times over the years I don't like the idea of any mission critical service being tied to a monthly per-user licence, it's a bad idea. Beyond that, I wish MS would stop this nonsense of having so many layers to their products. One Windows and one Office, none of this "Home", "Home Premium", "Pro", "Pro Plus", "Really Really Pro Premium Plus", etc.

chmars 13y ago

Why does Microsoft offer not only the single apps but also one app with all single apps included? That seems to be rather unusual for iOS apps. As a side note, App Store search is still lacking: Looking for 'microsoft office' did not result in a single hit related to actual apps from Microsoft. Googling for App Store links to the four new apps was easier in the end …

arrc 13y ago

They've also started using open-source technologies like Node.js and javascript (must be typescript). Microsoft is finally adopting open source with open arms. source: http://inessential.com/2014/02/04/azure_takes_over http://inessential.com/2014/02/04/azure_takes_over

romanovcode 13y ago
Also released MVC/WebApi/EntityFramework to public was pretty big deal.

beyondcompute 13y ago

When will Microsoft launch it's own iPad (or a product as good as it). "Launching something for concurrents' successful platform". That's weird.

orkoden 13y ago

The Microsoft Office Apps don't integrate well with other iOS apps. There's no open-in in other apps and no support for AirPrint or other printing options.

tmarman 13y ago

I was really hoping the "developers" portion would announce a Xamarin acquisition. Maybe at BUILD, but curiously as this talk was going on I got an email from Xamarin telling me to visit them at BUILD.