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Microsoft launches Office for iPad

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Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#181
post #4

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…

I agree, but it still has a ways to go. They are embracing open-source more and more, but they need to spend time making it easy for open source developers to make their projects work well on windows. Usually with multi-platform development, vagrant is one of the best solutions out there, however the support for using Windows VMs with vagrant is horrific. If anyone at Microsoft is reading this thread, please for the…

Yep, we're listening, and it's actively being worked on. See this: http://msopentech.com/blog/2014/02/25/vagrant-and-hyper-v-pr..., and there's more like it still to come.

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just marketing, people always say that about Apple because they have good marketing, but they have good numbers too. The fact that they have less than 10% marketshare in PCs is not all that significant when you consider the massive numbers of PCs that are sold for all kinds of tasks where a Mac wouldn't even qualify. If you were to look at marketshare of home computer purchases it would be drastically higher…

There isn't really any useful information in your reply here. Apples "Consumer only" market share is still less than 20% and if you include Ipads..... as a PC replacement their market share is still only around 15% (though that data is a year old apple only had about 25% growth last year which makes it a wash in the over all market so those numbers are still pretty truthy-ish) http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/14/270629…

I would suspect that the overwhelming majority of the ~80% of home users on Windows are just using it for web-surfing and nothing else. Basically most home windows machines are probably roughly comparable to a Chromebook insofar as actual day-to-day usage is concerned. Facebook, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. All the apps most people I know on windows use are web-based. This is anecdotal based on my observations, though I'd love to see hard data in this department.

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#183
post #28
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not changing, expensive subscription for editing is the proof. Same greedy corporation which cares about its cash cows.

Microsoft is a software company, and Office is one of their biggest products. Why would they make it free? While they do give out OneNote for free, it is not a major part of Office. Making Word, excel, and PowerPoint free would hurt them much more than it would help them.

It is because people like me are in the process of switching over to iWork because my on the go platform is an iPad. I am still in the middle of the transition, and this will make me reconsider.

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but it still has a ways to go. They are embracing open-source more and more, but they need to spend time making it easy for open source developers to make their projects work well on windows. Usually with multi-platform development, vagrant is one of the best solutions out there, however the support for using Windows VMs with vagrant is horrific. If anyone at Microsoft is reading this thread, please for the…

Yep, we're listening, and it's actively being worked on. See this: http://msopentech.com/blog/2014/02/25/vagrant-and-hyper-v-pr... , and there's more like it still to come.

That's a step in the right direction, but don't make us use Hyper-V when most of us are already using VirtualBox. That's one more thing to add to my stack that is different than my tooling that works with all other operating systems I test on. Most developers using vagrant use VirtualBox. Now I have no problem if you make things work with Hyper-V, but please make things work with VirtualBox as well. Does hyper-v even run on Linux or OS X?

PS that link isn't loading for me.

PSS if you are an MS engineer working on this stuff, can you please contact me via the email in my profile. I didn't see an email in yours.

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#185

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…

Office 365 is downright cheap compared to Adobe's subscription offerings: $600/year or $75/month. Granted, that gives you access to a huge suite of applications. But if you only need, say, three of them, you can subscribe individually, which at $20/app/month, would cost you a mere $720/year! And unlike Office, which is still available as a desktop app without a subscription, Adobe has discontinued its entire non-subs…

Office 365 may be a bargain for some people, but that is much more than I have been sending to MS over the last few years. As a student this will make me start paying more and its looking a lot more like a cell phone bill than a one time purchase.

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#186
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it speaks to the amazing power of marketing. People are always blown away when they find out that apple has less than a 10% market share and that their market share has actually gone down over the last 10 years.

That's because market share is a meaningless measure.

Nope its actually a totally real and meaningful measure. it measures how much of the market

market -> all the people

encompasses your share

share -> using your stuff

Apple has shown time and again that it isn't a good measure of Profitability, but your statement seemed to imply a more general connotation that I can't help with disagree with.

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#187
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't the 1990s anymore where Windows is the dominant platform. It's always easy to see who's in the bubble.

It still dominates overwhelmingly in enterprise, but at homes? People might have a windows box, but lots of older adults (people over 40) just use an iPad in front of the TV instead. My mum hasn't touched her PC in several months.

And anyone over 60 is still using an XP laptop from 2002.

Most people have a computer in their home. If they graduated to mobile devices, they didn't just chuck the thing in the trash, they kept it around. They still probably get photos off their camera or print coupons on it, because AirPrint and whatever Androids 4.4 printing thing is are barely known about, crummy, and only supported on a fraction of devices

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Office 365 is downright cheap compared to Adobe's subscription offerings: $600/year or $75/month. Granted, that gives you access to a huge suite of applications. But if you only need, say, three of them, you can subscribe individually, which at $20/app/month, would cost you a mere $720/year! And unlike Office, which is still available as a desktop app without a subscription, Adobe has discontinued its entire non-subs…

Office 365 may be a bargain for some people, but that is much more than I have been sending to MS over the last few years. As a student this will make me start paying more and its looking a lot more like a cell phone bill than a one time purchase.

Students can get a 4 year subscription for $80. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/university/

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't really any useful information in your reply here. Apples "Consumer only" market share is still less than 20% and if you include Ipads..... as a PC replacement their market share is still only around 15% (though that data is a year old apple only had about 25% growth last year which makes it a wash in the over all market so those numbers are still pretty truthy-ish) http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/14/270629…

I would suspect that the overwhelming majority of the ~80% of home users on Windows are just using it for web-surfing and nothing else. Basically most home windows machines are probably roughly comparable to a Chromebook insofar as actual day-to-day usage is concerned. Facebook, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. All the apps most people I know on windows use are web-based. This is anecdotal based on my observations, though…

My 80 year old grandmother actively uses VMware on her windows 8 machine, for real not making this up.

And that's the problem with anecdotes they tend to be way more interesting than the real data.

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#190

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…

It's somewhat expensive at first sight for an individual, but it's a pretty phenomenal pricing for a family. Lets you buy 1 "license" and it works on up to 5 Macs/PCs and 5 mobile devices/tablets.

2 parents + 3 kids? Not bad. Not sure what the stance is on doing some "framily" thing where you share it with friends.

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