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Microsoft Office Mobile arrives for iOS

arstechnica.com

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Re: Microsoft Office Mobile arrives for iOS

#51

Post by jakebellacera »

marban wrote: post #16

Does anyone have any insights on who really uses these kinds of apps on their phone (and how)? Whether it's MSO, iWork or GDocs I can't find any productive use for them other than a quick lookup. Even editing a simple 10 page document is just a huge pain and there's really no piece of mind that it'll look good on a desktop device.

Keynote for iOS has been incredibly useful for me in the past. My office's meeting rooms each have a TV with an AppleTV connected into them, so I just use my iPad to stream the presentation.

Re: Microsoft Office Mobile arrives for iOS

#53

Post by tambourine_man »

bornhuetter wrote: post #47
nostromo wrote: post #41

I wish Microsoft had decided to separate into several companies way back during the US v. Microsoft case. Office is actually a great product and Excel in particular still is the best available spreadsheet around. But Office has been hamstrung by being part of Microsoft; in particular by not supporting iOS or Android or online (until being forced to). If Office was its own company, I'm sure these platforms would have…

Office would do well without the rest of Microsoft (in fact possibly even better), but I'm not sure the rest of Microsoft would do well without Office. Office is a huge stable cash-cow that allows Microsoft to experiment on things like Kinect without having to worry if they aren't always profitable. You could argue the same thing with Apple and iOS. iOS would be better if it weren't so tied to OS X, but I'm not sure…

iOS would be better if it weren't so tied to OS X

Why is that?

Re: Microsoft Office Mobile arrives for iOS

#54

Post by bornhuetter »

tambourine_man wrote: post #53
bornhuetter wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Office would do well without the rest of Microsoft (in fact possibly even better), but I'm not sure the rest of Microsoft would do well without Office. Office is a huge stable cash-cow that allows Microsoft to experiment on things like Kinect without having to worry if they aren't always profitable. You could argue the same thing with Apple and iOS. iOS would be better if it weren't so tied to OS X, but I'm not sure…

iOS would be better if it weren't so tied to OS X Why is that?

Two main reasons:

1. If people could develop for it on other platforms it would significantly increase the number of people able to write iOS apps globally, particularly people from lower socio-economic groups. In the short term it doesn't make a big difference, but there are millions of people in India and China that can't afford even an entry level Mac, and I think in the long run this is detrimental to the ecosystem.

2. Many iOS services are tied into the Apple ecosystem, such as messages, notes, facetime etc. If they weren't using iOS to try to get people onto OSX then these services would be more likely to be cross platform and therefore far more useful.

Re: Microsoft Office Mobile arrives for iOS

#55

Post by mwfunk »

freyrs3 wrote: post #30
k-mcgrady wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple let OS X run on other hardware the OS would suffer with them having to spend time supporting so many different configurations. If they didn't their reputation would suffer. Microsoft building Office for Linux would be a complete waste of time and money. The majority of Linux users would complain that it was expensive, closed source, and continue using the free, open alternatives.

> The majority of Linux users would complain that it was expensive, closed source, and continue using the free, open alternatives. I don't know what you're user base you're sampling but the vast majority of Linux users are not opposed to closed source ( Steam, VMWare, Humble Bundle ) and are quite willing to pay for quality software.

It's hard to say. I get the sense that there's a huge disconnect between the demographics of all Linux users, and the impression one might get of those demographics by doing a survey of blogs, forums, mailing lists, online polls, etc.

For example, if you just read the most popular Linux forums, you could easily get the impression that every single Linux user despises Ubuntu with every fiber in the fabric of their being, and that they would never use any closed source product under any circumstances, and that they would only consider paying for anything if what they were paying was itself 100% open source.

As far as I can tell, though, that's not necessarily the case at all, with the Steam/VMWare/Humble Bundle cases being well-known counterexamples. As far as I can tell, nobody really knows. The Humble Bundle cases are interesting because Linux users have historically paid more than users from other platforms, on average, but is that because most Linux users want more closed source Linux software, or is it because a subset of Linux users want to encourage more closed source, and are voting with their wallets to demonstrate that?

Anyway, nobody knows. But if you are correct that the vast majority of Linux users are not opposed to closed source, then that would imply that pretty much the entire online Linux community is a hugely disproportionate misrepresentation of Linux users as a whole. Given that Linux as a platform is far more reliant on having a healthy online community than other platforms, that would be a big problem. However, my gut feeling is that you are correct, and that the online Linux community is a vastly disproportionate subset of Linux users, and that it's unfortunate that the online community is so dominated by one particular type of user.

Re: Microsoft Office Mobile arrives for iOS

#56

Post by mwfunk »

nostromo wrote: post #41

I wish Microsoft had decided to separate into several companies way back during the US v. Microsoft case. Office is actually a great product and Excel in particular still is the best available spreadsheet around. But Office has been hamstrung by being part of Microsoft; in particular by not supporting iOS or Android or online (until being forced to). If Office was its own company, I'm sure these platforms would have…

Absolutely. I have nothing to go on other than gut feelings for this, but it almost seems like if Microsoft had been broken up, all of the individual companies that would have been created would not only have ended up shipping better products, but may have been collectively even more profitable than Microsoft is now.

Usually when a company offers a wide range of products that work especially well together, that's a good thing, but somehow Microsoft has ended up crippling themselves. Even from a purely nontechnical marketing perspective, it seems like every single thing that they've made that has had "Windows" in the product name that was not the OS itself (Windows Phone being a prime example), has suffered from the association.

I feel like Windows Phone could have been much more successful if they had just called it something else. It also seems like Xbox may have been much less successful if they were required to call it Windows Box or WindowsTV or whatever. It's just a dumb marketing thing that has nothing to do with technical details of the product, but it makes a huge different in how potential customers view that product.

Re: Microsoft Office Mobile arrives for iOS

#57

Post by tambourine_man »

bornhuetter wrote: post #54
tambourine_man wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS would be better if it weren't so tied to OS X Why is that?

Two main reasons: 1. If people could develop for it on other platforms it would significantly increase the number of people able to write iOS apps globally, particularly people from lower socio-economic groups. In the short term it doesn't make a big difference, but there are millions of people in India and China that can't afford even an entry level Mac, and I think in the long run this is detrimental to the ecosyst…

I think it's more of a push to full stack Apple-only solution than being tied to OS X.

I wish Apple cared for OS X that much.

Re: Microsoft Office Mobile arrives for iOS

#59

Post by bornhuetter »

tambourine_man wrote: post #57
bornhuetter wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two main reasons: 1. If people could develop for it on other platforms it would significantly increase the number of people able to write iOS apps globally, particularly people from lower socio-economic groups. In the short term it doesn't make a big difference, but there are millions of people in India and China that can't afford even an entry level Mac, and I think in the long run this is detrimental to the ecosyst…

I think it's more of a push to full stack Apple-only solution than being tied to OS X. I wish Apple cared for OS X that much.

It's the same problem with Office. MS are using Office to help keep big business on a full MS stack - Windows, Sharepoint, Windows Server etc. And it's business that really matters to Microsoft. If Office were to be split off, they would be more likely put it on all smartphones, Linux, write a better OSX version etc, but it could weaken Microsoft's position wrt its other products.

It would probably be great for consumers if these companies took the attitude of making their products work best in a full stack, but still play nicely with everyone else's products, but they seem believe (rightly or wrongly) that it is in their own best interest to push for vertical integration and implicit or explicit lock-in.

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