Ballmer: Office with no iPad support makes 'a lot of sense'
Summary: Launching the new Office 365 without support for the iPad makes sense to Microsoft Chief Steve Ballmer.
The question of Office for iOS has burned for a year, but a release is still up in the air with comments by Microsoft Chief Steve Ballmer at yesterday's "new" Office 365 launch.
Asked about Office for the iPad, Ballmer gave a terse reply: "I have nothing to say on the topic."
"We're very happy with the product that we're putting in market," Ballmer told Bloomberg. "It makes sense on the devices like the Mac and the PC. We have a product that we think makes a lot of sense. We do have a way for people always to get to Office through the browser, which is very important. And we'll see what we see in the future.
Rumours that Office would be coming to iPads and iPhone in March 2013 surfaced late last year after Microsoft's Czech office announced Office Mobile for Android and iOS, allowing owners of Apple devices to purchase a subscription to Office 365. In the meantime, the only tablet on which Office is available is Microsoft's own Surface.
The fundamental issue thought to be behind the delay in bringing Office to iOS is Microsoft's unwillingness to pay Apple's 30-percent commission on apps sold through its App Store. Negotiations on the issue derailed Microsoft's plans to update its SkyDrive app for iOS last year, according to All Things Digital.
Microsoft also announced on Tuesday that the Home Premium version of Office would get tighter integration with its SkyDrive cloud storage service, along with Skype calling.
Despite Microsoft's late entry to a market that Dropbox cornered early, Ballmer told Bloomberg that he remains unfazed by the "fine little start-up" and its 100 million users, which, he noted, are dwarfed by Microsoft's billion for its Office cash cow. (How many users does Microsoft's Dropbox rival Skydrive have? It's not quite clear; last month, Microsoft said more than 200 million people "have used" SkyDrive, but didn't give a figure on how many are still active users.)
A key difference between the two, according to Ballmer, is that Dropbox is dominated by consumers, while Office 365 gets a much higher percentage of revenue from business customers. That said, Dropbox is making its way into the enterprise: a recent study found that one in five corporate IT users are using the service to store work documents.
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Talkback
There is an option to have Office in App store and not pay a dime to Apple
You Win: Most stupid idea of the day!
Companies that make their money from advertising are always happy to give away stuff that will help them sell more advertising... Google is an example of this. There is an increasingly popular business model referred to as "Fremium" that involves giving software with basic features away... in the hope that users will pay for the more advanced features. Fremium is an evolution of the Shareware software distribution model.
im going to assume that op isn't a complete moron
I thought
your guess is as good as mine.
You're right
Problem,
Cut!
Ever heard of a thing call a joke?
RE: Make Office for iPad FREE!
FANTASTIC
RE: FANTASTIC
"Office to finally fully support ODF, Open XML, and PDF formats
http://www.zdnet.com/office-to-finally-fully-support-odf-open-xml-and-pdf-formats-7000002696/
"ODF is the default format in the main open-source office suites: LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
Are you suggesting that Microsoft is doing something untoward with regard to their stated support of ODF?
And with the iPad, saving "a buck or two" isn't the issue. The issue is the absence of Microsoft Office for the iPad.
Standards shmandarts
All browsers support HTML and Javascript. Look how well that works...
So What Makes Micro$oft Office So Wonderful?
As for Micro$oft Office: I am forced to use it at my day job, but I use WordPerfect Office X5 whenever I can. No auto-formatting ("Big Brother in Redmond knows what you need better than you do"), no hassle integrating and editing tables and outlines, and fewer crashes. Please don't bore me with claims of Micro$oft Office integrating with Micro$oft Project and the like; the integration is spotty at best. Please don't bore me with claims of integration with Outlook; many of us find Outlook problematic. The bottom line is that if you want an _efficient, functional_ office suite for the iPad, lobby Corel.
No auto-formatting?
You've no idea what you are talking about...
Tech Pro
Guess what? I use the OpenOffice.org suite. Consistent against all platforms is a plus. Can't argue with the licensing terms.
I worry about pros who insist that there's only one way. This business has changed a lot, for one thing. Crises are cruel to the non-resourceful. (On the eve of a client's trip to China, a large critical document worked on for weeks in Word suddenly became "corrupt." I offered to try opening it with OpenOffice.org to restore it and, fortunately, that worked.) I take to heart Kurzweil's formulation that an engineer is someone who can do for a nickel what any damn fool can do for a dime.
No hard feelings, though, I wish you well.
King
So, Gisabun
Interesting statement. You 'see them' because you are in those businesses, and have access to their complete software inventory? or is it just that you read documents from them?
I have used Open Office and later Libre Office for close to ten years now. There are seldom any problems, as long as I remember to convert the document format BEFORE I send it. Microsoft Office is not able to import ANY formats without mangeling them.
When there are problems with the formats, it is almost universally based on the fonts used. If you just don't change the font, and ignore the rest of the formatting, then there is no problem, unless it is a document you created. Microsoft's Times New Roman is a different font than every one elses. Several others also Kern differently. If you absolutely need the document to appear spaced the same (almost never), and you don't or can't use the Microsoft product, then download the fonts from Microsoft and the problem is solved.
The same is true with Word Perfect. Oh, and I have used Word Perfect several times when Word messed up documents and the user can't fix it. Nested paragraph formatting is one common source of this. Another is the many incompatible versions Microsoft has used of it's 'format' over the years. Importing into Word Perfect, fixing the error with 'reveal codes' and then exporting in the latest supported Word format fixes this problem in seconds. Most typists spend hours retyping to eliminate the problem. It probably eats up at least a (Wo)Man day per Month at most offices.
Of course the IT guys never admit that such a thing happens.
ODF
To those that don't have to exchange docs with others, especially between several parties from different companies or organizations, then, sure, OO/LO is probably fine for you.
But for the great many of us who share docs between organizations, collaborate between teams, integrate Office apps with LOB systems, integrate data in corporate databases, require DRM solutions tomensure data privacy, etc., OO & LO just aren't capable enough.