The above photo demonstrates why the full Office application is not suitable for a touch device. Office, as we know it, was designed to be a mouse-based product that let you deal with a lot of drop-down menus and tons of multi-level-deep menus and buttons. The Office programs are highly complicated because they could be, and because the programs are embellished and loaded down with bells and whistles some people need, but most people never use.
I have a version of Word1.0 that fit onto a 400K floppy, to give you some idea of how it has grown and been bloated to what it is today. Pages, as it is today, has many more features than Word 1.0 did in its day.Pages is not up to Word 5.0, and it may be a while, if ever, before it gets there. The reason is that the program cannot outgrow the ability of the Tablet's UI.
I watched a demo of Office Excel on the Surface RT. OMG, it was a total pain to watch the demonstrator try to touch the cell he wanted to input a formula. The formula was nearly impossible to make out, there were so many UI issues in that short demo. A straight port to the iPad would hurt Microsoft more then help. It really needs to be rethought and and the UI redesigned. The other thing to consider is, do you want to create complex spreadsheet and documents on an iPad, or do you want to ONLY be able to open, read, and edit them? Or, as a last resort, would it be adequate to only open, read, and do SOME editing of the documents and spreadsheets? If the last choice is adequate, we may be there already with iWorks as the iPad software. If not there now, then very close currently.
This could be why enterprise is satisfied with the iPad for most situations right now and is content with iWorks in its current incarnation... and besides, iWorks is free, no extra costs or subscriptions, and if collaboration is needed, they can do it on the iCloud...also free.
While Google Docs is gaining traction on Office, it by no means has the market penetration the Microsoft still has. Google Docs has a ways to go.
The other thing to think about is that maybe Microsoft might have a new approach with their new CEO. He was instrumental in their cloud services, which have been very well received. Maybe there might be a more productive strategy at the company.
It still has a relative monopoly. There are less smaller organizations that depend on it, but at large enterprises of thousands of users, no one is even close.
BTW - I'm not defending it. Just pointing out something that I have seen in large companies.
I agree in fact. There was one guy at my office (some kind of open source zealot) who insisted on using Open Office (and it's native file format) for everything, all he did was piss everyone off. Big companies need one standardised office suite, and since they typically already use Windows (and therefore have a relationship with Microsoft) it's just easier to use Office. And it's not that bad either. But for home users or small rebellious startups it's a different story.
I agree in fact. There was one guy at my office (some kind of open source zealot) who insisted on using Open Office (and it's native file format) for everything, all he did was piss everyone off. Big companies need one standardised office suite, and since they typically already use Windows (and therefore have a relationship with Microsoft) it's just easier to use Office. And it's not that bad either. But for home users or small rebellious startups it's a different story.
Unfortunately, Ballmer made some insanely bad mistakes. Instead of molding Microsoft into an innovator, he just milked existing cash cows. Instead of pushing enterprises into the future, he always just thought of the bottom line. Microsoft had some great innovators that he pushed out because he was threatened.
As a technology lover, it actually bums me out that his ego drove him to hinder a company which he said he loves.
Hopefully things change. Hopefully Office becomes a leaner, faster, suite for those that use it.
iWork for iOS has exactly the same functionality as iWork for OS X.
The vast majority of users do not use Visual Basic for Applications.
iWork for OSX supports AppleScript capability while iOS for iWork does not. By the same token Excel for desktop Win32 would support macros & VBA while I'm assuming the iOS version would not.
Unfortunately, Ballmer made some insanely bad mistakes. Instead of molding Microsoft into an innovator, he just milked existing cash cows. Instead of pushing enterprises into the future, he always just thought of the bottom line. Microsoft had some great innovators that he pushed out because he was threatened.
As a technology lover, it actually bums me out that his ego drove him to hinder a company which he said he loves.
Hopefully things change. Hopefully Office becomes a leaner, faster, suite for those that use it.
That's right. I hope that Nadella goes "back to basics" and concentrates on improving products instead of business tricks.
I have not tried it, but doesn't Microsoft include a version of office on its windows phones? It should be easy for them to create a similar version for iOS.
I think the Office monopoly was doomed the moment they opened up the file format (the XML based one).
Doomed maybe but this isn't why. The XML stuff is open but lots of the pieces in there are binary blobs in ... you guessed it ... original proprietary format. The format of the blobs isn't documented/open but much of it has been reverse-engineered. So competitors are still where they were before - close but not fully-compatible.
After reading the comments on a number of sites including this one, this is my take on "Office" as a suite of programs.
[B]Excel[/B] [INDENT]The [I][COLOR=red]"killer app"[/COLOR][/I] of the majority of businesses around the world. It can not, and probably never will be eclipsed by any other spreadsheet program for a very (very!) long time. It should be spun out of the Office suite and be a stand-alone product (again).[/INDENT]
[B]PowerPoint[/B] [INDENT]No sense or cents in continuing it's existence. Waste of resources. The "power-slide deck" is a (despised?!) thing of the past and its far easier to communicate and visualize ideas and talking points using web technologies and communications. Besides that, Keynote already kills it in usability, functionality and presentational aesthetics. Kill it. [/INDENT] [B]Word[/B] [INDENT]Kill it. Does absolutely nothing better... and in many cases far worse... than current web technologies that separate content from presentation logic.
Consider this:
a) formatting and the display of text, including the embedding of flat images, is FAR faster and easier to perform...including indexing, later retrieval and manipulation according to it's intended usage... then an MS Word doc ever will be.
b) this forum post and the entire Internet proves that fact. None. Of. It. Is. Created. In. Word.
Printed communications are dying and will continue to contract until they're in single digit numbers in a not too far distant future. So why continue to develop software with "dead-tree printing" at it's core capability and raison d'être?
Apple and Google realize this, and are pushing web-based document creation for this very reason. Microsoft also knows this is the future of "communication, collaboration and publishing", or else they wouldn't be pushing Office 365 so hard.
They just need to have leadership willing to make the hard decisions that will facilitate the move. They need to chop Office in half, drop some functionality, and even some programs. Then build "muscle" on top of the lean and mean framework, and support it with secure backend server technology. Something they "should" know something about after all of these years.
To an Apple or Google fan... this is all too obvious. Does it resonate at all in Redmond? I "think" so... but they've become the IBM that they danced nimbly around so many years back... and are too comatose and frightened to do anything about it these days. Delay until you have no other choice, rather than have the balls to "put it on the line" and take a chance. Although I have to admit, they're reluctance might have something to do with the hell-storm they've been forced to put up with since Windows 8. That experience and backlash would make anybody pause before the Big Jump and doing another Belly Flop....:smokey:
Agreed -- who gives a shit about Office anymore? I mean, two years ago was THE time to do it, but since so many programs are free and touch-friendly with cloud integration. I can't remember the last time I used anything Microsoft Office related outside of work (and there only because the job is a Microsoft shop).
The fact is -- nobody really CARES about Microsoft anymore. They're really not on the map at all for tablets or many home users. Maybe one day they'll stage a comeback with something really great, but I'll believe it when I see it and have it in-hand (no more "microsoft promises").
I don't mean to say I hate Microsoft -- I LOVE Microsoft. Especially Windows -- it was the whole reason I moved to the Mac in the first place.
The question is how many are using this workhorse called excel.
The next question is is excel suitable for the tablet.
I agree. Excel is like a truck and Excel experts are like truck drivers. The world needs trucker drivers and Excel experts, but I'm glad I'm not one of them and I think Apple is perfectly OK with not catering to them ;=)
I just checked the exhibitor listing at MacWorld (coming up in SF at the end of this month) and they are not listed as exhibitors. Too bad as that would have been a great venue for them to announce/release the product.
Comments
The above photo demonstrates why the full Office application is not suitable for a touch device. Office, as we know it, was designed to be a mouse-based product that let you deal with a lot of drop-down menus and tons of multi-level-deep menus and buttons. The Office programs are highly complicated because they could be, and because the programs are embellished and loaded down with bells and whistles some people need, but most people never use.
I have a version of Word1.0 that fit onto a 400K floppy, to give you some idea of how it has grown and been bloated to what it is today. Pages, as it is today, has many more features than Word 1.0 did in its day.Pages is not up to Word 5.0, and it may be a while, if ever, before it gets there. The reason is that the program cannot outgrow the ability of the Tablet's UI.
I watched a demo of Office Excel on the Surface RT. OMG, it was a total pain to watch the demonstrator try to touch the cell he wanted to input a formula. The formula was nearly impossible to make out, there were so many UI issues in that short demo. A straight port to the iPad would hurt Microsoft more then help. It really needs to be rethought and and the UI redesigned. The other thing to consider is, do you want to create complex spreadsheet and documents on an iPad, or do you want to ONLY be able to open, read, and edit them? Or, as a last resort, would it be adequate to only open, read, and do SOME editing of the documents and spreadsheets? If the last choice is adequate, we may be there already with iWorks as the iPad software. If not there now, then very close currently.
This could be why enterprise is satisfied with the iPad for most situations right now and is content with iWorks in its current incarnation... and besides, iWorks is free, no extra costs or subscriptions, and if collaboration is needed, they can do it on the iCloud...also free.
The other thing to think about is that maybe Microsoft might have a new approach with their new CEO. He was instrumental in their cloud services, which have been very well received. Maybe there might be a more productive strategy at the company.
It still has a relative monopoly. There are less smaller organizations that depend on it, but at large enterprises of thousands of users, no one is even close.
BTW - I'm not defending it. Just pointing out something that I have seen in large companies.
I agree in fact. There was one guy at my office (some kind of open source zealot) who insisted on using Open Office (and it's native file format) for everything, all he did was piss everyone off. Big companies need one standardised office suite, and since they typically already use Windows (and therefore have a relationship with Microsoft) it's just easier to use Office. And it's not that bad either. But for home users or small rebellious startups it's a different story.
Unfortunately, Ballmer made some insanely bad mistakes. Instead of molding Microsoft into an innovator, he just milked existing cash cows. Instead of pushing enterprises into the future, he always just thought of the bottom line. Microsoft had some great innovators that he pushed out because he was threatened.
As a technology lover, it actually bums me out that his ego drove him to hinder a company which he said he loves.
Hopefully things change. Hopefully Office becomes a leaner, faster, suite for those that use it.
iWork for iOS has exactly the same functionality as iWork for OS X.
The vast majority of users do not use Visual Basic for Applications.
iWork for OSX supports AppleScript capability while iOS for iWork does not. By the same token Excel for desktop Win32 would support macros & VBA while I'm assuming the iOS version would not.
iWork for iOS has exactly the same functionality as iWork for OS X.
The vast majority of users do not use Visual Basic for Applications.
That's not something to brag about. Numbers is highly under powered, along side Pages. Keynote is the one A+ app.
Unfortunately, Ballmer made some insanely bad mistakes. Instead of molding Microsoft into an innovator, he just milked existing cash cows. Instead of pushing enterprises into the future, he always just thought of the bottom line. Microsoft had some great innovators that he pushed out because he was threatened.
As a technology lover, it actually bums me out that his ego drove him to hinder a company which he said he loves.
Hopefully things change. Hopefully Office becomes a leaner, faster, suite for those that use it.
That's right. I hope that Nadella goes "back to basics" and concentrates on improving products instead of business tricks.
Microsoft needs the iPad a WHOLE lot more than the iPad needs Microsoft. Go away, Microsoft!
I think the Office monopoly was doomed the moment they opened up the file format (the XML based one).
Doomed maybe but this isn't why. The XML stuff is open but lots of the pieces in there are binary blobs in ... you guessed it ... original proprietary format. The format of the blobs isn't documented/open but much of it has been reverse-engineered. So competitors are still where they were before - close but not fully-compatible.
Incorrect.
Underpowered? Perhaps for 1% of the population.
[B]Excel[/B]
[INDENT]The [I][COLOR=red]"killer app"[/COLOR][/I] of the majority of businesses around the world. It can not, and probably never will be eclipsed by any other spreadsheet program for a very (very!) long time. It should be spun out of the Office suite and be a stand-alone product (again).[/INDENT]
[B]PowerPoint[/B]
[INDENT]No sense or cents in continuing it's existence. Waste of resources. The "power-slide deck" is a (despised?!) thing of the past and its far easier to communicate and visualize ideas and talking points using web technologies and communications. Besides that, Keynote already kills it in usability, functionality and presentational aesthetics. Kill it.
[/INDENT]
[B]Word[/B]
[INDENT]Kill it. Does absolutely nothing better... and in many cases far worse... than current web technologies that separate content from presentation logic.
Consider this:
a) formatting and the display of text, including the embedding of flat images, is FAR faster and easier to perform...including indexing, later retrieval and manipulation according to it's intended usage... then an MS Word doc ever will be.
b) this forum post and the entire Internet proves that fact. None. Of. It. Is. Created. In. Word.
Printed communications are dying and will continue to contract until they're in single digit numbers in a not too far distant future. So why continue to develop software with "dead-tree printing" at it's core capability and raison d'être?
Apple and Google realize this, and are pushing web-based document creation for this very reason. Microsoft also knows this is the future of "communication, collaboration and publishing", or else they wouldn't be pushing Office 365 so hard.
They just need to have leadership willing to make the hard decisions that will facilitate the move. They need to chop Office in half, drop some functionality, and even some programs. Then build "muscle" on top of the lean and mean framework, and support it with secure backend server technology. Something they "should" know something about after all of these years.
To an Apple or Google fan... this is all too obvious. Does it resonate at all in Redmond? I "think" so... but they've become the IBM that they danced nimbly around so many years back... and are too comatose and frightened to do anything about it these days. Delay until you have no other choice, rather than have the balls to "put it on the line" and take a chance. Although I have to admit, they're reluctance might have something to do with the hell-storm they've been forced to put up with since Windows 8. That experience and backlash would make anybody pause before the Big Jump and doing another Belly Flop....:smokey:
Agreed -- who gives a shit about Office anymore? I mean, two years ago was THE time to do it, but since so many programs are free and touch-friendly with cloud integration. I can't remember the last time I used anything Microsoft Office related outside of work (and there only because the job is a Microsoft shop).
The fact is -- nobody really CARES about Microsoft anymore. They're really not on the map at all for tablets or many home users. Maybe one day they'll stage a comeback with something really great, but I'll believe it when I see it and have it in-hand (no more "microsoft promises").
I don't mean to say I hate Microsoft -- I LOVE Microsoft. Especially Windows -- it was the whole reason I moved to the Mac in the first place.
If you're a serious spreadsheet user
I think the point here is, quite simply, that most people aren't.
The question is how many are using this workhorse called excel.
The next question is is excel suitable for the tablet.
I agree. Excel is like a truck and Excel experts are like truck drivers. The world needs trucker drivers and Excel experts, but I'm glad I'm not one of them and I think Apple is perfectly OK with not catering to them ;=)
Well it seems that Tableau IS coming natively to the Mac:
http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/blog/2013/09/tableau-public-mac-2130
I just checked the exhibitor listing at MacWorld (coming up in SF at the end of this month) and they are not listed as exhibitors. Too bad as that would have been a great venue for them to announce/release the product.
http://www.macworldiworld.com/expo-hall/
It is VERY encouraging that high end data visualization programs like Tableau are moving to the Mac. I for one will be supporting them when they do.