[DrSpanky]

Quote

Please don't anyone take offense at this (thought I know you will because people do), but who in the HELL in their right mind would WANT ANY office suite on a TABLET???

Tablets are designed for content consumption, this is a given. However, they are awesome in meetings. You can take notes, create tasks, and schedule projects in real time. Once a meeting is over, you can pass along the information to your staff, assign people to the tasks and do it all without having to retype a single word.
If you need to sit down a write the next great novel, it will more than likely happen on a traditional computer. If you want to make a few edits or write a few more pages, a tablet can be far more convenient. Just as they are better when making a presentation. Who wants to carry the traditional bulky laptop and projector when you can carry a tablet and Pico device? Tablets were designed for content consumption, but they're not limited to content consumption, unless you're too narrow minded to see them as anything other than toys, no offense.

[audzk]

Quote

Those figures are for Win 8 and are not all purchases by the public yet. Most are to OEMs. But the most important thing for a company is revenue. How do you get it? Sales of your product. So far MS has sold around 900,000 Surface RTs in the 4th quarter 2012. Apple, in the same quarter, sold 22.9 million iPads. see: http://news.techworl...demand/?olo=rss So if MS does not sell Office for iOS they lose out on a large share of the tablet market( Apple's 100 mil. iPads plus Andriod). If MS would sell 1 mil. copies at $30, let's say, and Apple takes 30% that is still a $20 mil. revenue stream and that ain't chump change.

i think you are part right and part wrong.
yes , you are right that company all needs is revenue. but microsoft is a software company, their main revenue is not from surface sales. those 60 million copies are sold to oems, oems paid microsoft whether oem's able to sold it to consumers or not. so those 60 millions copies are already revenues of microsoft. microsoft doesnt need apple, well i think apple doesnt need microsoft either.

[audzk]

Quote

Those figures are for Win 8 and are not all purchases by the public yet. Most are to OEMs. But the most important thing for a company is revenue. How do you get it? Sales of your product. So far MS has sold around 900,000 Surface RTs in the 4th quarter 2012. Apple, in the same quarter, sold 22.9 million iPads. see: http://news.techworl...demand/?olo=rss So if MS does not sell Office for iOS they lose out on a large share of the tablet market( Apple's 100 mil. iPads plus Andriod). If MS would sell 1 mil. copies at $30, let's say, and Apple takes 30% that is still a $20 mil. revenue stream and that ain't chump change.

i think you are part right and part wrong.
yes , you are right that company all needs is revenue. but microsoft is a software company, their main revenue is not from surface sales. those 60 million copies are sold to oems, oems paid microsoft whether oem's able to sold it to consumers or not. so those 60 millions copies are already revenues of microsoft. microsoft doesnt need apple, well i think apple doesnt need microsoft either.

[brainout]

DrSpanky, on 05 February 2013 - 03:22 AM, said:

Quote

Please don't anyone take offense at this (thought I know you will because people do), but who in the HELL in their right mind would WANT ANY office suite on a TABLET???

Tablets are designed for content consumption, this is a given. However, they are awesome in meetings. You can take notes, create tasks, and schedule projects in real time. Once a meeting is over, you can pass along the information to your staff, assign people to the tasks and do it all without having to retype a single word.
If you need to sit down a write the next great novel, it will more than likely happen on a traditional computer. If you want to make a few edits or write a few more pages, a tablet can be far more convenient. Just as they are better when making a presentation. Who wants to carry the traditional bulky laptop and projector when you can carry a tablet and Pico device? Tablets were designed for content consumption, but they're not limited to content consumption, unless you're too narrow minded to see them as anything other than toys, no offense.

You give a cogent answer, but now to the details. HOW can you take notes on a tablet well, and HOW can you make a few edits or write a few more pages on a tablet? For the second you're talking about typing, it requires either one of those dysfunctional virtual keyboards, or one you must attach -- in which case, you'd be better off with a laptop.

I'm not saying this to be harsh. I've got clients who might be served by a tablet, and I'm TRYING VERY HARD to find something nice so I can recommend them.

[brainout]

audzk, on 05 February 2013 - 03:25 AM, said:

Quote

Those figures are for Win 8 and are not all purchases by the public yet. Most are to OEMs. But the most important thing for a company is revenue. How do you get it? Sales of your product. So far MS has sold around 900,000 Surface RTs in the 4th quarter 2012. Apple, in the same quarter, sold 22.9 million iPads. see: http://news.techworl...demand/?olo=rss So if MS does not sell Office for iOS they lose out on a large share of the tablet market( Apple's 100 mil. iPads plus Andriod). If MS would sell 1 mil. copies at $30, let's say, and Apple takes 30% that is still a $20 mil. revenue stream and that ain't chump change.

i think you are part right and part wrong.
yes , you are right that company all needs is revenue. but microsoft is a software company, their main revenue is not from surface sales. those 60 million copies are sold to oems, oems paid microsoft whether oem's able to sold it to consumers or not. so those 60 millions copies are already revenues of microsoft. microsoft doesnt need apple, well i think apple doesnt need microsoft either.

Respectfully beg to disagree. They both need each other. Here's the bigger picture: MS didn't cater to schools like Apple did. So all the 20-somethings entering the workforce now, were weaned on Apple/Mac/iPod, so of course they are Apple fanboys. I was weaned on DOS, so I'm a DOS junkie. You go with what you know. So now these folks enter the workforce, having little familiarity with MS. That spells future revenue trouble for MS unless it can hook these young ones early on, with their software. MS knew that back when it started bundling PCs with its software, and the same strategy holds today. So it desperately needs to offer its flagship software on Apple devices.

If Linux had started like MS did, we'd all be using Linux instead of either MS or Apple. For the 20-somethings overseas, Linux is what they're being weaned on. So both Apple and MS have a lot to lose, over the next 10-20 years. They need each other's customers, to survive, especially since both companies have practices which offend and alienate many of their current customers, like suing competitors at the drop of a hat. So they had better well get the next generation, if they hope to survive.

MS seems to know that vaguely, that's why it invented Win8 as a tablet hybrid OS. Trouble is, it did a very bad job in the design, and especially the LOOK of the thing. It's not 'cool'. Flat, too big and garish, a real turnoff to anyone who has half a brain. Apple had and still retains a 'cool' interface. MS didn't pick up on that, despite the fact it had made great strides (if it hadn't totally screwed up icon usage and file management) in Windows 7. It basically junked what it should have learned from Windows 7, and now goes back to what no one wants, Windows 3.1 style 'look'. Bad move, if you want the 20-somethings, who are used to more sophistication, now.

80% of the user reviews of Win8 report major installation and usage problems, with the interface only an irritation, but enough of one to garner complaints. You cannot afford to alienate customers by making their lives harder. Businesses can't use Win8 because its touch-centric interface doesn't lend itself to corporate needs for standardization. So MS has alienated its personal buyers and its business buyers, in one fell swoop. So now the potential future revenue pool has shrunk a lot, and Linux is just now maturing for the desktop and tablet, having already won millions of hearts via smartphones. So it's not surprising that among the 1-star reviews I've read of Win8, most of them end with the exclamation that they will port over to Linux or Mac. So if MS wants to keep these disgruntled folks at ALL, they better wake up and start making their overpriced software available on other platforms.

But they won't. They are arrogant beyond description, thinking like all religions do, that if they just plant their feet and draw a line in the sand, they will win in the end. Well, honey, that didn't work when Antiochus IV bucked Rome (origin of 'line in the sand' quote from his old roommate, Popilius Linus, how ironic) -- and it won't work now.

MS and Apple have seriously underestimated the amount of goodwill left them, and have even more underestimated the competition. The game is not like it was, 30 years ago. Users don't like big garish pictures, like PC World now spews on all its webpages and articles; like Google is doing in Youtube. So, less time is spent at those places. So, advertising revenue will go down. Users don't like interface changes which actually make it two-four times harder or longer to get to the same place as they used to get. Above all, they don't like the changes being FORCED on them. Again, the alternative of Linux (as much as I still dislike it) offers a freedom increasingly lost from MS and Apple. Since the 20-somethings overseas are being weaned on Linux, since it's all they can afford; since smartphones are on Linux already, in the final analysis MS and Apple need to be nice to each other so they aren't defeated by an OS both disparage.

It's equivalent to The Reformation, but for operating systems. That's what the recent 'fad' of tablets and Chromebooks, really signifies. 'We're sick of the complexity of the big boys, GIVE US SOMETHING SIMPLER.' Whoever caters to that goal, will win. If you have to GUESS at how to use a device, sooner or later you'll tire of using it. HInt hint.

This post has been edited by brainout: 05 February 2013 - 04:19 AM

[LIEBER]

iPad is flawed in 3 areas wrt using it in meetings:
1. No keyboard -- the screen based keyboard is horrible for typing anything but a couple of words, and take up the better part of the screen.
2. No proper support for writing with a pen/stylus -- using the finger is inferior to a stylus with Wacom digitizer.
3. No decent office tool/word processor.

Should MS release Office for iPad? In my view: yes! Why, as this only solves point 3 above? Because when people start to use Office with SkyDrive on their tablets, this will reduce the cost of switching to a Win (8) based system. With already starting to use more productive tools, the user will soon discover the advantages of an integrated keyboard and stylus, too -- as with e.g the Thinkpad Helix.

[QUADICON]

The problem with Office for iPad is how do you use a mouse? Oh wait...the finger can work. The other issue is likely the closed file system. If you make Office docs, Office will likely be the only application that can open them other than what Apple uses to open them now.

Apple will likely want a piece of the sales, maybe MS doesn't want to share. There are also apps for Office, how to make them avail on iPad. Again revenue is an issue as Apple wants a 3rd of it.

I don't think MS is missing out on much. Keeping Office only on their mobile devices insures revenue, just like how Apple's App Store works for them.

If webkit browser weren't so cheap, than Office 365 would be a great option for the online version. Its not MS' fault that Office Online works best with IE or Firefox. Downsides to close platforms is when you have a world renowned application, making it work somewhere else isn't always feasible. I side with Ballmer on this one.

[QUADICON]

Quote

As soon as LibreOffice / Kingsoft / TeamLab get into the iOS scenario with solid, full-featured apps, Microsoft will be in trouble.

How so? LibreOffice on the desktop[p breaks like Google Docs and all the rest all the extended features of Office. FOr someone using typical office docs with no extended formatting and formulas, those freebies are good solutions. Businesses are not going to switch from MS Office, so what or who would be causing so much trouble using Libre or similar?

All those extended features are left out of Libre and others like Open Office because those features require licensing. If they paid for such, their options would cost as much as MS Office. Sounds like MS Office is the better solution.

[QUADICON]

Quote

TsarNikky said A very interesting observation, in that Microsoft is conceding a huge market. It appears to be so true. Look at Windows-8; clearly not designed for the traditional office/enterprise setting using laptops and desktops working with applications that are and will continue to be keyboard/mouse oriented. Oh well. What do you want to bet it's the old OS war, all over again. MS overvalues its MS Office, thinks that you'll 'have to' use the OS, to get MS Office, which it thinks you need. But you don't. In fact, you can easily pick up an older version of MS Office and run it in Bootcamp or Parallels, and actually get a better MS Office product, one which most of the world still uses. For most of the world, is still on MS Office 2003 and prior. Why? Because later editions CHANGED THE INTERFACE, which conflicts with the many add-ins and macros and other features which made MS Office popular, in the first place. MS must have a death wish. It's now mentally ill, I just don't know what else to conclude. lol. The majority of users are not still using office 2003. Wow.

Yep they are.

[QUADICON]

Making Office for the iPad will ruin the Office software as we know it. Office would have to be completely redesigned for touch. Since the iPad sucks with using a stylus, it would make using your finger a chore on small icons or menu items. Then you need to buy a expensive keyboard, the iPad right now can't even use Bluetooth enable mice.

Office on Android would make more sense because my GN2 and the GS3 an both use a mouse and keyboard and when using the HDMI adapter, you can attach the phone to any monitor with an HDMI port and get full 1080p with supporting apps and I could use Office for ARM, with no changes to the UI whatsoever. I say, let Apple produce their own suite for Mac/iPad crowd because why would a Windows PC user need it? Bsuinesses likely wont buy the Mac suite. They aren't buying it now. Even businesses with Mac use Office. They may use Keynote and that other stuff amongst themselves, but Office is the defacto standard. It would benefit APple more than Microsoft to make Office of the iPad. This is not the same as Office has been on the Mac vs Windows PC. In 97' Gates stated that they had about 8M users of Office on the Mac. That number I am sure is much bigger. That is why office makes more money than Windows bec it runs on another platform that doesn't require Windows to install Office.

I think Office for the iPad will end up like what it is on the Windows Mobile/Phone devices, a scaled down editor.

[sgtblind]

You are right about Microsoft leaving out a lot of customers. If they would get with Apple, they will make money. I am a truck driver and I have been using Microsoft Streets and Trips since 2000. Three months ago, brought 2013. Now have a IPad Mini and can not use streets and trips. If I had to buy it again for my IPad Mini I would. People are getting Tablets and iPads because it makes their jobs easily. Microsoft Office and Microsoft Streets and Trips are the best out there. Get on board Microsoft and make some money.

[trich63]

@Lieber, you haven't done your research. You said:

"iPad is flawed in 3 areas wrt using it in meetings:

1. No keyboard -- the screen based keyboard is horrible for typing anything but a couple of words, and take up the better part of the screen."

1) Any Bluetooth 2.0+ keyboard of any size or layout will work with any iPad or iPhone running iOS 5 or newer. There are dozens of options, most inexpensive enough to leave in a conference room to pair with someone who can't be bothered - um - forgot to bring their own.

Using the built-in iPad keyboard is only a problem if you're a touch typist and cannot change how you think about typing. I've seen clumsy, ham-handed electricians and salespeople pick it up just as quickly as C-level execs and homemakers. The ones who "can't" use it are the ones who try one word, tap a wrong key, and are immediately put off and never try again. Those folks will never go far with anything with a touch screen.

"2. No proper support for writing with a pen/stylus -- using the finger is inferior to a stylus with Wacom digitizer."

2) There are apps that do handwriting very well, but it's not baked into the OS. Also, few process your digital ink into searchable text. The best one, to many, - Penultimate - just went free after being bought by Evernote and updated to use that online syncing and OCR service. Huge productivity tool. And there are dozens of stylii out there, if one cares to search for "capacitive stylus."


"3. No decent office tool/word processor."

3) There are text processors galore, and they will sync with services from Dropbox, Box, SugarSync, iCloud or just about any non-proprietary service out there. The previously mentioned Evernote runs on every platform around (well, except Linux and Blackberry) and syncs immediately. Secure access is $5 a month, but most could use the free version. iA Writer, PlainText, Elements - there are a bunch that just do text and are fast and flexible.

Between PDF and web based services, the need for Word and such is falling by the wayside. I just bought a house and the entire thing was handled electronically via PDF and digital signatures. The Realtor on her iPad or iPhone or PC (at different times/places), my wife and I on Macs, iPads, or iPhones. I'm sure the realtor probably used Word to start the file at some point, but there's no reason it couldn't have been input on any text editor, or even a typewriter and OCR program. The electrician came to my old house, pulled out an Android and Square, swiped my card, and the payment registered in my iPhone's email. Where was Word in that? Or PowerPoint?

The mobile ship has sailed, and Microsoft wants us all to go down to the train station and wait for the steam engine!

[brainout]

QUADICON, on 05 February 2013 - 02:06 PM, said:

Quote

TsarNikky said A very interesting observation, in that Microsoft is conceding a huge market. It appears to be so true. Look at Windows-8; clearly not designed for the traditional office/enterprise setting using laptops and desktops working with applications that are and will continue to be keyboard/mouse oriented. Oh well. What do you want to bet it's the old OS war, all over again. MS overvalues its MS Office, thinks that you'll 'have to' use the OS, to get MS Office, which it thinks you need. But you don't. In fact, you can easily pick up an older version of MS Office and run it in Bootcamp or Parallels, and actually get a better MS Office product, one which most of the world still uses. For most of the world, is still on MS Office 2003 and prior. Why? Because later editions CHANGED THE INTERFACE, which conflicts with the many add-ins and macros and other features which made MS Office popular, in the first place. MS must have a death wish. It's now mentally ill, I just don't know what else to conclude. lol. The majority of users are not still using office 2003. Wow.

Yep they are.

You're quoting me, but the bold italics is not part of what I said. It's part of what iCrapple said. You and I both know the majority are still using MS Office 2003 and prior.

[bicen1976]

Quote

audzk said
Those figures are for Win 8 and are not all purchases by the public yet. Most are to OEMs. But the most important thing for a company is revenue. How do you get it? Sales of your product. So far MS has sold around 900,000 Surface RTs in the 4th quarter 2012. Apple, in the same quarter, sold 22.9 million iPads. see: http://news.techworl...demand/?olo=rss So if MS does not sell Office for iOS they lose out on a large share of the tablet market( Apple's 100 mil. iPads plus Andriod). If MS would sell 1 mil. copies at $30, let's say, and Apple takes 30% that is still a $20 mil. revenue stream and that ain't chump change. i think you are part right and part wrong. yes , you are right that company all needs is revenue. but microsoft is a software company, their main revenue is not from surface sales. those 60 million copies are sold to oems, oems paid microsoft whether oem's able to sold it to consumers or not. so those 60 millions copies are already revenues of microsoft. microsoft doesnt need apple, well i think apple doesnt need microsoft either. Respectfully beg to disagree. They both need each other. Here's the bigger picture: MS didn't cater to schools like Apple did. So all the 20-somethings entering the workforce now, were weaned on Apple/Mac/iPod, so of course they are Apple fanboys. I was weaned on DOS, so I'm a DOS junkie. You go with what you know. So now these folks enter the workforce, having little familiarity with MS. That spells future revenue trouble for MS unless it can hook these young ones early on, with their software. MS knew that back when it started bundling PCs with its software, and the same strategy holds today. So it desperately needs to offer its flagship software on Apple devices. If Linux had started like MS did, we'd all be using Linux instead of either MS or Apple. For the 20-somethings overseas, Linux is what they're being weaned on. So both Apple and MS have a lot to lose, over the next 10-20 years. They need each other's customers, to survive, especially since both companies have practices which offend and alienate many of their current customers, like suing competitors at the drop of a hat. So they had better well get the next generation, if they hope to survive. MS seems to know that vaguely, that's why it invented Win8 as a tablet hybrid OS. Trouble is, it did a very bad job in the design, and especially the LOOK of the thing. It's not 'cool'. Flat, too big and garish, a real turnoff to anyone who has half a brain. Apple had and still retains a 'cool' interface. MS didn't pick up on that, despite the fact it had made great strides (if it hadn't totally screwed up icon usage and file management) in Windows 7. It basically junked what it should have learned from Windows 7, and now goes back to what no one wants, Windows 3.1 style 'look'. Bad move, if you want the 20-somethings, who are used to more sophistication, now. 80% of the user reviews of Win8 report major installation and usage problems, with the interface only an irritation, but enough of one to garner complaints. You cannot afford to alienate customers by making their lives harder. Businesses can't use Win8 because its touch-centric interface doesn't lend itself to corporate needs for standardization. So MS has alienated its personal buyers and its business buyers, in one fell swoop. So now the potential future revenue pool has shrunk a lot, and Linux is just now maturing for the desktop and tablet, having already won millions of hearts via smartphones. So it's not surprising that among the 1-star reviews I've read of Win8, most of them end with the exclamation that they will port over to Linux or Mac. So if MS wants to keep these disgruntled folks at ALL, they better wake up and start making their overpriced software available on other platforms. But they won't. They are arrogant beyond description, thinking like all religions do, that if they just plant their feet and draw a line in the sand , they will win in the end. Well, honey, that didn't work when Antiochus IV bucked Rome (origin of 'line in the sand' quote from his old roommate, Popilius Linus , how ironic) -- and it won't work now. MS and Apple have seriously underestimated the amount of goodwill left them, and have even more underestimated the competition. The game is not like it was, 30 years ago. Users don't like big garish pictures, like PC World now spews on all its webpages and articles; like Google is doing in Youtube. So, less time is spent at those places. So, advertising revenue will go down. Users don't like interface changes which actually make it two-four times harder or longer to get to the same place as they used to get. Above all, they don't like the changes being FORCED on them. Again, the alternative of Linux (as much as I still dislike it) offers a freedom increasingly lost from MS and Apple. Since the 20-somethings overseas are being weaned on Linux, since it's all they can afford; since smartphones are on Linux already, in the final analysis MS and Apple need to be nice to each other so they aren't defeated by an OS both disparage. It's equivalent to The Reformation, but for operating systems. That's what the recent 'fad' of tablets and Chromebooks, really signifies. 'We're sick of the complexity of the big boys, GIVE US SOMETHING SIMPLER.' Whoever caters to that goal, will win. If you have to GUESS at how to use a device, sooner or later you'll tire of using it. HInt hint.

My company has Windows 8 on virtually every machine except one. Windows 8 app store has loads of free apps (and listings of Windows 8 compatible legacy desktop apps) that help with most areas of business and development. To be truthful, the major things we miss about Windows is Aero. The glass look was beautiful. Some of the tile icons are also kind of okay.