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Microsoft launches Office for iPad

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Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#41

Post by gum_ina_package »

martinald wrote: post #27
sz4kerto wrote: 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. The most exciting thing would be Mono becoming a first-class citizen for .NET. I think this is likely for two reasons: 1) They may well acquire Xamarin, which would result in them 'owning' Mono. 2) The new CEO has been extremely forward thinking vs the rest of Microsoft on supporting open source software on Azure. 3) Increasing amounts of ASP.NET and other .NET technologies are open source now I would love f…

This would be an incredibly interesting development. I personally love c# and would be thrilled if it became a mainstream language outside the enterprise software crowd.

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#42

Post by alistairSH »

cobalt wrote: post #18
chrisdevereux wrote: post #12

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…

I wouldn't exactly call office 365 that expensive. It's $100/4yrs for students (university) and $100/yr for 5 users. That's hardly expensive. (Sure if you live alone it's more expensive, but you could probably just pair up with friends/family to split the cost)

$100/year for subscription. OR $139 one-time for Office Home.

Sure sounds expensive to me. I'll stick to the Apple office suite for now.

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#43

Post by ams6110 »

webjprgm wrote: post #32
amaks wrote: 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.

I agree with XDes that corporations like MS should make money. My negative reaction is that I do not like the subscription model for software. Perhaps that's what amaks viscerally reacts to as well. Subscriptions bleed money from users continually, regardless of how often they use something. Paying for major upgrades only allows the user to upgrade based on whether they need certain features and potentially skip ever…

Exactly. Microsoft is after the business users who will throw the subscription on expenses without a second thought. Personal use for something like this is likely not a huge market; google docs is good enough, and free, for that.

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#44

Post by yulaow »

msoliman wrote: post #9

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

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/ba...

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#45

Post by yulaow »

martinald wrote: post #27
sz4kerto wrote: 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. The most exciting thing would be Mono becoming a first-class citizen for .NET. I think this is likely for two reasons: 1) They may well acquire Xamarin, which would result in them 'owning' Mono. 2) The new CEO has been extremely forward thinking vs the rest of Microsoft on supporting open source software on Azure. 3) Increasing amounts of ASP.NET and other .NET technologies are open source now I would love f…

I was really happy seeing that azure sdks are released not only natively for windows but also for osx and linux.

Imho, their strategy for asp.net can be easily what you described here.

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#46

Post by mediaman »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #20
amaks wrote: post #14

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

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.

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.

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#47

Post by MadManE »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #20
amaks wrote: post #14

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

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.

Subscriptions in general leave a bad taste in my mouth. What happened to just buying the software, and when you felt like upgrading (either because of compatibility issues, or needed functionality) then you can upgrade? Subscriptions definitely are a win for a business by ensuring income streams, but as a consumer I want to pay the company when I feel like buying something and not when they feel like they need money.

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#48

Post by ams6110 »

be5invis wrote: post #40

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.

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.

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#49

Post by rayiner »

chrisdevereux wrote: post #12

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…

> Why would I want to publish using Office instead of Google Docs

Because Google Docs continues to suck?

Re: Microsoft launches Office for iPad

#50

Post by Already__Taken »

chrisdevereux wrote: post #12

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…

I dont see how you could allow editing for free really it's so easy to steal then with the simplest of copy/paste.
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