But how does this make sense? Microsoft having to buckle under the pressure of losing more share, by making an app for the iPad? Aren't all of the statistics from reputable stat sites saying the ipad sells a small sliver of the tablet market? Why would Microsoft waste their resources on this small segment, when they don't do it for blackberry or even surface yet? And having to give 30% of revenue? Doesn't make any sense from the analytical reports of reputable sites. /s
I know that you are being facetious, bitter that a hardware company whose entire lineup consists of 5 products (1 of whom is the deprecated I-Pod, one of whom is the hobby Apple TV, and a third is the PC, which Apple has been selling since 1976, the 4th, the I-Phone, which Apple has been selling since 2007, and the 5th, the I-Pad, which Apple has been selling since 2010) does not possess singular dominance of Wall Street and media headlines. Shockingly, tech companies that offer more products and services than 5 (and whose offerings span multiple sectors i.e. consumer, enterprise, software, hardware, services, infrastructure, cloud) tend to get more respect from Wall Street (those pesky hedge fund managers who like companies that can make up for a bad stretch in some product lines with strength in others and everything .... how irrational is that ... investments in companies that have all their eggs in 1 or 2 baskets is MUCH SMARTER and MUCH MORE LIKELY to yield returns over the long term right ... I mean an energy company who is #1 in oil is A MUCH BETTER INVESTMENT than a company that was #3 in coal, #3 in oil, #3 in natural gas, #3 in nuclear and #5 in green energy right?) and companies that come out with new products get more press than companies who release updates of their existing ones (even the debate over whether the new product will succeed or not and the wider implications of its success or failure is more compelling to journalists and analysts than reporting Apple's selling more mp3 players, smartphones and tablets than everyone else for the umpteenth year in a row.)
But to take your statement at face value, Microsoft is coming out with Office for Android later this year. Yes, they prioritized the I-Pad for obvious reasons: it is the #1 selling device and the best device. But Office will be on Samsung's 12.2 inch tablet made exclusively for the enterprise soon enough. So no matter who wins between the battle of the hardware companies (Apple or Samsung) or even if it is a draw, Microsoft will make money selling them Office. A good position to be in. A catbird one actually. It stinks for the Windows division of the company, but the company already lost a decade letting Ballmer make that division the main emphasis of the company in exclusion to everything else. They had their chance(s) and blew it and have no one to blame but themselves.
I was planning on buying the annual subscription but now I'll do it through the app. Have to support my apple stock by getting apple 30%. Good job apple. Make more money.
There were about 10 people in line at the Microsoft store for there free one year subscription. Yes that's right only 10 and that's because the store wasn't open yet. After that there was no more traffic. $100 a year is way to expensive and since Apple gives away there software for free the idea is even more ridiculous to pay that much.
So it's a "viewer." So what? If I don't pay, it's only a viewer. And honestly, when I am sent a Word or Excel file, I can view it on my iPad3 already just fine. How much better a viewer do we really need on an iPad?
And therein lies the point. It would appear that MS doesn't want you to be a viewer. It wants to use this viewer to make you drool over the possibilities of how you could EDIT files on your iPad, hoping you will open your wallet to their annual subscription fee.
As for me, I'd rather just view on the iPad with what I have now. And if I need to edit MS docs, I will trek on over to my Mac, which has more screen space for me to perform needed edits.
I think all the power office users will be disappointed with this, the ones who criticised Numbers for not being able to do pivot tables etc. If you already subscribe to Office 365 then it's a no-brainier - get this office suite. If you do not subscribe to Office 365 I would stick with iWork. From what I have seen they both have similar feature sets and iWork apps can print as well.
So it's a "viewer." So what? If I don't pay, it's only a viewer. And honestly, when I am sent a Word or Excel file, I can view it on my iPad3 already just fine. How much better a viewer do we really need on an iPad?
How about a "viewer" that lets you AirPrint What you just viewed... like an iWork app.
A very nice suite of software that definitely feels built for the iPad. For those in school or in the workplace, it's harder to find a smoother piece of content creation than Office. It is pricey, and obviously must feel pressure from Apple's iWork software which comes free with Apple hardware. However any time a teacher/professor/manager needed something created, they needed a PPT, DOCX or XLS. It's just far too convenient pay for Office than to fight with alternatives.
The biggest reason businesses and other institutions stick with Office is out of fear of losing the IP and value that's embedded in these document formats. Microsoft keeps just enough of those fringe features in the proprietary parts of their document formats to keep the FUD of switching to a competitor's product intact, even when competitors claim compatibility with the Office document formats. This has kept Office as the defacto standard even though there is a huge percentage of users whose needs would be completely filled by other products.
I do take exception to the claim of smoothness of content creation, at least outside of Excel, which is a brilliant product as are most spreadsheets starting way back with Lotus 123 (there were earlier ones by I had no exposure to them). It's not a knock on Microsoft specifically, it applies to nearly all manufacturers of word processing and presentation software, and Microsoft is the market leading offender. If you focus on creativity part of "content creation" products like Word and PowerPoint do more to dumb down and inhibit creativity than any other so-called "productivity" products sold in the last 50 years. Humanity was able to accomplish some amazing feats during the 20th century in large part because we didn't have products like Word and PowerPoint getting in the way and dumbing down our scientists and engineers. The focus was on creativity of content and not presentation of content. If PowerPoint and Word were available in the 1960s we'd still be oohing and ahhing over NASA's pretty pictures and slide transitions and very tight document layouts with pleasing fonts and staying almost on track for a 2050 lunar landing, as a stretch goal.
This is of course an exaggeration to make a point, but it does point out that so much of what is put in front of users of these products is fluff that gets in the way of creativity. I'm not saying that nice looking documents are a bad thing, I'm saying get all that crap out of the way of the creative mind and deal with fluff later, when the creative content has already been captured. Running Word is like trying to frame up a house and having the interior decorator slinging wallpaper around the job site and bugging you while your trying to figure out if your wall structure is adequate for the load. Franky, I don't want my carpenters committing brain cells to wallpaper choices when they have hammers and saw in their hands. But that's what Word does. In the technical community this equates to lovely looking documents and presentations filled with junk content that's lacking creativity. The wall collapses, but hey doesn't it look totally awesome with that Trebuchet font.
You may say "I can just turn off all the fluff" and run Word or Pages in draft or outline mode. Well now you're really going to see how inadequate the tool really is. The distractions, like the hideous ribbon bar, don't go away. It's still just as slow to load and save, it still adds distracting fonts and formatting, and it's not really adding anything that a decent text editor like NotePad++ would suffice for. It's still in your face and inhibiting higher thought. In fact, once you try to strip down Word to not get in the way you realize that OneNote is actually a better alternative. It's less intrusive but it lacks very basic text editing features like search and replace (totally bizarre!). A better outline mode for Word is to not use it, use Excel or use NotePad++ or TextWranger on the Mac. In fact, my favorite productivity tool in the Apple ecosystem is Notes, only because it allows me to capture ideas very quickly and have them instantly available on all Apple devices and the web via iCloud. I wish it had a better outlining mode, but the immediacy of capture trumps features. I'm holding out some hope that OneNote fills in the gaps where Notes falls short, but dammit, no transparent ICloud integration is so very painful and OneDrive is neither as convenient nor as ubiquitous.
Sorry for the spew, but I did want to encourage other folks to look at multi-platform alternatives to Word, Pages, etc., if you're really focused on capturing creativity and not just creating "stuff" that may look pretty good but may not reflect the intellectual value that you really are capable of producing. Anything that gets in your way or gets your brain cells focused on fluff only detracts from your true creative potential.
What I want to know is how many people have signed up for a 365 account and how many keep it after the 30 day free trial. I downloaded Excel out of curiosity. This App took a very long time to download and install which makes me wary of performance. I know Office on my Mac is the most sluggish software I have. I suspect that most downloads are out of curiosity only, I don't see any software worth a perpetual $9.95/mo. If I am wrong than Microsoft will be asking themselves, "Why didn't we do this sooner.
But how does this make sense? Microsoft having to buckle under the pressure of losing more share, by making an app for the iPad? Aren't all of the statistics from reputable stat sites saying the ipad sells a small sliver of the tablet market? Why would Microsoft waste their resources on this small segment, when they don't do it for blackberry or even surface yet? And having to give 30% of revenue? Doesn't make any sense from the analytical reports of reputable sites. /s
The vast majority of the Android tablet market is made up of cheap, barely functional tablets owned by people who wouldn't use MS Office if it were the only app in existence. MS wants to be where the money is, which is iOS.
You can view pre-existing pivot tables but cannot create new ones. There are some work arounds though. This service can create pivot tables and connects directly to OneDrive, for example.
Comments
But how does this make sense? Microsoft having to buckle under the pressure of losing more share, by making an app for the iPad? Aren't all of the statistics from reputable stat sites saying the ipad sells a small sliver of the tablet market? Why would Microsoft waste their resources on this small segment, when they don't do it for blackberry or even surface yet? And having to give 30% of revenue? Doesn't make any sense from the analytical reports of reputable sites. /s
I know that you are being facetious, bitter that a hardware company whose entire lineup consists of 5 products (1 of whom is the deprecated I-Pod, one of whom is the hobby Apple TV, and a third is the PC, which Apple has been selling since 1976, the 4th, the I-Phone, which Apple has been selling since 2007, and the 5th, the I-Pad, which Apple has been selling since 2010) does not possess singular dominance of Wall Street and media headlines. Shockingly, tech companies that offer more products and services than 5 (and whose offerings span multiple sectors i.e. consumer, enterprise, software, hardware, services, infrastructure, cloud) tend to get more respect from Wall Street (those pesky hedge fund managers who like companies that can make up for a bad stretch in some product lines with strength in others and everything .... how irrational is that ... investments in companies that have all their eggs in 1 or 2 baskets is MUCH SMARTER and MUCH MORE LIKELY to yield returns over the long term right ... I mean an energy company who is #1 in oil is A MUCH BETTER INVESTMENT than a company that was #3 in coal, #3 in oil, #3 in natural gas, #3 in nuclear and #5 in green energy right?) and companies that come out with new products get more press than companies who release updates of their existing ones (even the debate over whether the new product will succeed or not and the wider implications of its success or failure is more compelling to journalists and analysts than reporting Apple's selling more mp3 players, smartphones and tablets than everyone else for the umpteenth year in a row.)
But to take your statement at face value, Microsoft is coming out with Office for Android later this year. Yes, they prioritized the I-Pad for obvious reasons: it is the #1 selling device and the best device. But Office will be on Samsung's 12.2 inch tablet made exclusively for the enterprise soon enough. So no matter who wins between the battle of the hardware companies (Apple or Samsung) or even if it is a draw, Microsoft will make money selling them Office. A good position to be in. A catbird one actually. It stinks for the Windows division of the company, but the company already lost a decade letting Ballmer make that division the main emphasis of the company in exclusion to everything else. They had their chance(s) and blew it and have no one to blame but themselves.
If the PivotTable already exists in the workbook, you can use it. You cannot create a PivotTable with Excel for iPad.
PowerPivot is not supported at all.
Excel for iPad does not support VBA macros or user-defined functions.
Microsoft Excel MVP Bill Jelen has a 20 minute demonstration of Excel for iPad at http://www.mrexcel.com/learnexcel/
There were about 10 people in line at the Microsoft store for there free one year subscription. Yes that's right only 10 and that's because the store wasn't open yet. After that there was no more traffic. $100 a year is way to expensive and since Apple gives away there software for free the idea is even more ridiculous to pay that much.
So it's a "viewer." So what? If I don't pay, it's only a viewer. And honestly, when I am sent a Word or Excel file, I can view it on my iPad3 already just fine. How much better a viewer do we really need on an iPad?
And therein lies the point. It would appear that MS doesn't want you to be a viewer. It wants to use this viewer to make you drool over the possibilities of how you could EDIT files on your iPad, hoping you will open your wallet to their annual subscription fee.
As for me, I'd rather just view on the iPad with what I have now. And if I need to edit MS docs, I will trek on over to my Mac, which has more screen space for me to perform needed edits.
Steve (Ballmer) would have never allowed this.
Oh you. Co-opting an Apple meme to make a dig at Ballmer, clever girl.
Did you see that? Take a look at what I did! See what I just did? ^^^
Brilliant response. Maybe I was at work all day and didn't have access to my iPad. Those kind of answers you can keep to yourself.
Ha Ha! So, what you're saying is that MS Office Apps are for Content Consumption w00t!!!
How about a "viewer" that lets you AirPrint What you just viewed... like an iWork app.
A very nice suite of software that definitely feels built for the iPad. For those in school or in the workplace, it's harder to find a smoother piece of content creation than Office. It is pricey, and obviously must feel pressure from Apple's iWork software which comes free with Apple hardware. However any time a teacher/professor/manager needed something created, they needed a PPT, DOCX or XLS. It's just far too convenient pay for Office than to fight with alternatives.
The biggest reason businesses and other institutions stick with Office is out of fear of losing the IP and value that's embedded in these document formats. Microsoft keeps just enough of those fringe features in the proprietary parts of their document formats to keep the FUD of switching to a competitor's product intact, even when competitors claim compatibility with the Office document formats. This has kept Office as the defacto standard even though there is a huge percentage of users whose needs would be completely filled by other products.
I do take exception to the claim of smoothness of content creation, at least outside of Excel, which is a brilliant product as are most spreadsheets starting way back with Lotus 123 (there were earlier ones by I had no exposure to them). It's not a knock on Microsoft specifically, it applies to nearly all manufacturers of word processing and presentation software, and Microsoft is the market leading offender. If you focus on creativity part of "content creation" products like Word and PowerPoint do more to dumb down and inhibit creativity than any other so-called "productivity" products sold in the last 50 years. Humanity was able to accomplish some amazing feats during the 20th century in large part because we didn't have products like Word and PowerPoint getting in the way and dumbing down our scientists and engineers. The focus was on creativity of content and not presentation of content. If PowerPoint and Word were available in the 1960s we'd still be oohing and ahhing over NASA's pretty pictures and slide transitions and very tight document layouts with pleasing fonts and staying almost on track for a 2050 lunar landing, as a stretch goal.
This is of course an exaggeration to make a point, but it does point out that so much of what is put in front of users of these products is fluff that gets in the way of creativity. I'm not saying that nice looking documents are a bad thing, I'm saying get all that crap out of the way of the creative mind and deal with fluff later, when the creative content has already been captured. Running Word is like trying to frame up a house and having the interior decorator slinging wallpaper around the job site and bugging you while your trying to figure out if your wall structure is adequate for the load. Franky, I don't want my carpenters committing brain cells to wallpaper choices when they have hammers and saw in their hands. But that's what Word does. In the technical community this equates to lovely looking documents and presentations filled with junk content that's lacking creativity. The wall collapses, but hey doesn't it look totally awesome with that Trebuchet font.
You may say "I can just turn off all the fluff" and run Word or Pages in draft or outline mode. Well now you're really going to see how inadequate the tool really is. The distractions, like the hideous ribbon bar, don't go away. It's still just as slow to load and save, it still adds distracting fonts and formatting, and it's not really adding anything that a decent text editor like NotePad++ would suffice for. It's still in your face and inhibiting higher thought. In fact, once you try to strip down Word to not get in the way you realize that OneNote is actually a better alternative. It's less intrusive but it lacks very basic text editing features like search and replace (totally bizarre!). A better outline mode for Word is to not use it, use Excel or use NotePad++ or TextWranger on the Mac. In fact, my favorite productivity tool in the Apple ecosystem is Notes, only because it allows me to capture ideas very quickly and have them instantly available on all Apple devices and the web via iCloud. I wish it had a better outlining mode, but the immediacy of capture trumps features. I'm holding out some hope that OneNote fills in the gaps where Notes falls short, but dammit, no transparent ICloud integration is so very painful and OneDrive is neither as convenient nor as ubiquitous.
Sorry for the spew, but I did want to encourage other folks to look at multi-platform alternatives to Word, Pages, etc., if you're really focused on capturing creativity and not just creating "stuff" that may look pretty good but may not reflect the intellectual value that you really are capable of producing. Anything that gets in your way or gets your brain cells focused on fluff only detracts from your true creative potential.
But how does this make sense? Microsoft having to buckle under the pressure of losing more share, by making an app for the iPad? Aren't all of the statistics from reputable stat sites saying the ipad sells a small sliver of the tablet market? Why would Microsoft waste their resources on this small segment, when they don't do it for blackberry or even surface yet? And having to give 30% of revenue? Doesn't make any sense from the analytical reports of reputable sites. /s
The vast majority of the Android tablet market is made up of cheap, barely functional tablets owned by people who wouldn't use MS Office if it were the only app in existence. MS wants to be where the money is, which is iOS.
Work on this must have started well into Balmer's time...
You can view pre-existing pivot tables but cannot create new ones. There are some work arounds though. This service can create pivot tables and connects directly to OneDrive, for example.