Microsoft counters Apple's free iWork suite by bolstering its Office Web Apps

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  • Reply 61 of 120
    relicrelic Posts: 4,735member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MazeCookie View Post

     

    Are you serious? If you are doing that much work, and it is so important, why the hell are you doing it in excel?

     

    Any serious business or businessperson that has those requirements would have a program written for them that would do all of these things, live, with pretty graphs and colours.

    To do these things in a spreadsheet is absurd and stupid.


    But company's do, everyday. Absurd or not, walk into any Treasury department in any bank in the world and Excel is being used for things just like I described. I worked in that industry for 18 years, hasn't changed. Sure they have specialized programs but their written in .net or visual-basic for the purpose of being used in Excel and a lot of the time there being writen by a person who is not a programmer but took a .net book home because he got tired of doing things manually. When that person leaves, chaos erupts when the scripts fails becasue some FTP server in Dubai didn't push a file out in time, seen it many times. In house programming departments is still a fairly new concept to some companies and outsourcing this stuff is to expensive for others. You as a tech savy person can sit there behind your terminal and type away that this sounds crazy but it's how things are in a lot of companies, especially financial institutions. I've seen companies loose millions becasue some formula was off a decimal in a Excel sheet, company goes in to hedge a bunch of trades that aren't there.

  • Reply 62 of 120
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    patsu wrote: »
    Google also made their business apps free in response to free iWorks. So it's driven primarily by iWorks.

    iPads is a great threat.

    I think Google made their apps free in response to Microsoft. It's popular to think everything is only in response to something Apple did but unless you have an Apple device iWorks isn't an option is it? Google Apps walks right into Microsoft's backyard, with the big bonus of being cross-platform for those iOS and Mac users.
  • Reply 63 of 120
    mcdavemcdave Posts: 1,927member
    Why? This isn't even touch. Numbers for iOS has it here.
  • Reply 64 of 120
    relicrelic Posts: 4,735member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by McDave View Post



    Why? This isn't even touch. Numbers for iOS has it here.

    Use a Windows 8 tablet, there touch. Heheh!

  • Reply 65 of 120
    jfanningjfanning Posts: 3,398member
    pujones1 wrote: »
    Free iWorks still beats $100 a year any day. I have the money but I just don't think I need a subscription to use what should be a core feature on any of their products running Windows.

    Free doesn't always mean better but in this case it's a "no-brainer" to go with the "FREE" iWorks Suite.

    How does one get iWorks for free, Apple wants to charge me for it. And some of us actually get Office 365 for free
  • Reply 66 of 120
    mcdavemcdave Posts: 1,927member
    More like comparing a regular car with a big rig i.e. far more useful to the majority of us.
  • Reply 67 of 120
    patsupatsu Posts: 430member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gatorguy View Post





    Unless you have an Apple device iWorks is useless isn't it? Google Apps gets right into Microsoft's yard, with the big bonus of being cross-platform.

     

    It runs on Windows too, over the web ! iWorks is cross-platform from the web perspective.

     

    Ask Google why they need to make their business apps free in response to free iWorks. ;-)

  • Reply 68 of 120
    patsupatsu Posts: 430member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Relic View Post

     

    I'm fully aware, I was replying to a statement that was questioning the use of Excel over Numbers as in why would you use Excel over Numbers.


     

    Ah, for a similar solution on the Mac + iOS platform, you don't really need to follow the MS model exactly. 

     

    You can either write an app, or do a web solution to achieve similar results, and still use Numbers for local reports/presentation or data entry and such.

     

    Once they have a working base, Apple can always evolve the platform further (e.g., Hypothetically, run iWorks inside Safari locally, and then connect to local databases using HTML5 database integration).

  • Reply 69 of 120
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    patsu wrote: »
    It runs on Windows too, over the web ! iWorks is cross-platform from the web perspective.

    Ask Google why they need to make their business apps free in response to free iWorks. ;-)

    Thanks for the mention! Seems I didn't keep up with the latest iWorks beta. Still doesn't change the view that Google's office apps, which have always been free for personal use, are now free to business as a challenge to MS, just as Apple's free iWorks is. Both Apple and Google see a chance to turn the screws a bit on MS thumbs.
  • Reply 70 of 120
    I don't want Office to dominate the future of productivity software the way it has for the last 20 years. Microsoft needs competition in this space, badly. The free open source Office clones that have floated around for many years never made a serious dent in corporate addiction to Office. Google Docs and iWork just might have a chance with consumers.
  • Reply 71 of 120
    daven wrote: »
    Microsoft is unwilling to make a proper version of Office for the iPad because they want to use Office to leverage people to their Surface tablet. Well my bottom line is "No stand-alone Office for the iPad, I'm looking elsewhere. Bye bye MS."

    You and a lot of other people. MS forgets that when folks jump platforms, everything gets reevaluated.

    Sure, today the annoying sysadmin and smug CIO dictate what app you use in your office for word processing and spreadsheets.

    Tomorrow, when Office still costs and iWork is free and iWork does 90% of what Office does and a BYOCMA (bring your own cheap mobile apps) policy prevails, users and bean counters will override CIOs and sysadmins.

    Some of us remember when PCs pushed out minis and mainframes over the objections of the "data processing department".

    IBM wasn't happy then, MS won't be soon.

    Then the CIOs will start cutting back on sysadmins, or at least expensive MCSEs...
  • Reply 72 of 120
    Gonna to see each other in court sooner rather than later
  • Reply 73 of 120
    Irrelevant
  • Reply 74 of 120
    gatorguy wrote: »
    ...unless you have an Apple device iWorks isn't an option is it?

    iWork.com is available on a browser.
  • Reply 75 of 120
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    vaporland wrote: »
    iWork.com is available on a browser.

    Yeah Patsu already mentioned that a few posts back. Appreciate it tho.
  • Reply 76 of 120
    ipenipen Posts: 410member

    The free iWork is a crippled version, just like all the other "free" trial software.  Hope Apple can provide the free "full" version in Apr next year or I have to go back to MSO.

  • Reply 77 of 120
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Lemon Bon Bon. View Post

     

    Me too. M$ are between a rock and the hard place. iPad is killing them and surface in hardware.  


     

    I wouldn't count Microsoft out just yet ... was just at Best Buy and noticed how many more people were trying to get a look at the new Surface tablets (with several purchases happening as I stood there), while the new iPad Air had only one or two people looking the entire time. I am also seeing many more very positive posts on the web about the Surface. Whatever Microsoft has been doing lately to get the word out seems like it may be starting to work for them. It will be interesting to see over the holidays where Surface sales land and if it actually starts to gain market share - or not.  

  • Reply 78 of 120
    ipenipen Posts: 410member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Lemon Bon Bon. View Post

     

    ...

     

    Add in that OS X now costs nothing?  That's another layer of money that business now don't have to pay for.  (If only Apple would make their Mac hardware just that bit cheaper...they used to!!!)

     

    Lemon  Bon Bon.


     

    What?  No, last time I checked, OSX server version is not free and business always needs to pay for support.  that's how the free or cheap business hardware/software makes money.

  • Reply 79 of 120
    ipen wrote: »
    What?  No, last time I checked, OSX server version is not free and business always needs to pay for support.  that's how the free or cheap business hardware/software makes money.

    Last time I checked, OS X Server was $20.

    MSCE sysadmins not so much. Yes business does need to pay for support one way or another. Ever heard of an MS CAL? An extra "tax" you pay for each user to connect to a MS server?

    TCO is the issue. Bean counters will do what S Jobs never could: replace MS in the enterprise.
  • Reply 80 of 120
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ipen View Post

     

    The free iWork is a crippled version, just like all the other "free" trial software.  Hope Apple can provide the free "full" version in Apr next year or I have to go back to MSO.


     

    As it stands right now there are so many very basic features missing from Pages it doesn't have any chance of replacing Word anytime soon.   We'll see what happens over time, but in it's current state there is just no comparison at all and no way it could be substituted for how most people use Word for work.

     

    At home, on the other hand, my daughter loves Pages for how easy it is to use to create documents - but she only needs the very basics for what she is using it for. 

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