
Microsoft Officially Launches Office for Android Phone - zhuxuefeng1994
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/24/microsoft-officially-launches-office-for-android-phone/
======
TazeTSchnitzel
> Office was once tied largely to Windows PCs, but the company today is
> working to make sure its flagship productivity suite works anywhere its
> users are – even on competitors’ OS’s.

Huh? Office has been on the Macintosh for decades. This isn't really new.

Heck, Office was on the Mac _before it was on Windows_.

~~~
hackuser
Office for the Mac was hamstrung in a way that made it usable for home users,
but difficult for businesses. There was no Outlook, no Visual Basic, and IIRC:
No pivot tables in Excel, no OOXML until 2011 (4 years after Office for
Windows), less integration with Microsoft's backend servers (Sharepoint,
etc.), and some other missing features. I'm also thinking that Group Policy
management didn't work or not as well.

Much of that was later fixed, but for a long time it was another powerful
reason for businesses to use Windows.

~~~
jychang
As a home user of Office on Mac (and therefore didn't bother with these
things), I have to ask: What has been fixed, and what hasn't?

~~~
DiabloD3
Try the Office 2016 Beta for OSX. Its going to be a launch day first class
citizen of the Office family, and is a complete UI/UX rewrite to match what
Windows does now.

I'm using it, it's ahead of the non-Beta Office that Office 365 currently
ships for Windows.

~~~
vxNsr
Any word on when that's gonna launch?

My mac users are freaking out because we just switched from gApps to Exchange
(I know, don't even) and Outlook 2011 is a joke compared to what my windows
peeps are getting. (not to mention the fact that I have to create a second set
of instructions just for them)

~~~
DiabloD3
Office365 and Office365 for Business's OSX installer already ships the new
Outlook by default, Excel and Word and the rest are available as optional
downloads, and will ship in the main installer, from what I've heard, early
next year.

Compared against Windows' current version of Office, it is a refinement.
Compared against Office 2011 for Mac, it is a massive upgrade, like day and
night.

~~~
vxNsr
We're part of a university and are bound by their license agreements which
until July 1st are just for Office 2013 and Office 2011, in a week from today
that mercifully changes to Office 365 and a much tighter integration with
onedrive for business support and larger mailboxes (until now it's been 8gb a
piece) + an easier overall installation process.

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RyanZAG
Definitely the best spreadsheet implementation available today when running on
a Galaxy S6 - beats out other Android options as well as Office on Windows
Phones or iOS, etc. It's actually really usable which is the first time I've
thought that for a mobile spreadsheet.

Very nice.

~~~
hackuser
Would you kindly provide details?

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jusben1369
I applaude them for finally doing this but I do wonder if it's too late in
that I've gotten hooked on GDocs and Drive based on their ease of use. I
suppose for corporate users of Office this is great news.

~~~
fsloth
For google docs, sharing is easy, collaboration is stupidly easy. My org has
moved to google tools from office and I would say it's for the better.
Previously everything was handled through emails and windows network drive
(and this from an org with tens of subsidiaries and presence on every
inhabited continent). Docs get lost a lot less nowadays. One can scream that
content management is old stuff but google made it easy enough for corporate
users just to jump aboard without expensive retraining.

That said - oh for the love of god, google docs writer editor is so bloody
horrible for anything but simplest of documents and even structuring larger
document bases through hyperlinking is awkward.

~~~
frik
> google docs writer editor is so bloody horrible

You can thank it to the broken ContentEditable HTML API. Google Docs v1 used
it, for v2 Google reinvented the wheel by coding a word processor render
engine using one DIVs per line. If only the browser vendors would fix the
ContentEditable API, then a Google Docs implementation would need just a few
lines of code. Multi column, multi page would be no problem with
contenteditable.
[http://caniuse.com/#feat=contenteditable](http://caniuse.com/#feat=contenteditable)

Sadly, three of the big four browser vendors have a competitive advantage if
their own cloud office suits cannot be reimplemented with a few lines of code.

~~~
skybrian
Apparently ContentEditable is unfixable:

[https://medium.com/medium-eng/why-contenteditable-is-
terribl...](https://medium.com/medium-eng/why-contenteditable-is-
terrible-122d8a40e480)

~~~
fsloth
Thanks for the link. I wish all serious discussions about software design
would take the time to enumerate the axioms (even if only implicit) used in
the design.

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amyjess
Shouldn't this be "re-launches"? Office Mobile for Android phones has been
around for a year or two.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
I think it's mostly because the previous versions were considered a preview /
beta.

~~~
amyjess
Wasn't a beta; it was a totally different app.

It was a Holo app... here's what it looked like:
[http://www.gsmarena.com/microsoft_releases_office_mobile_for...](http://www.gsmarena.com/microsoft_releases_office_mobile_for_office_365_android_app-
news-6495.php)

It originally required an Office 365 subscription, but they later lifted that
requirement.

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kstenerud
Really? These are "premium" features requiring a subscription??

• Change page orientation

• Insert page and section breaks

• Highlight table cells with custom color shading

• Enable columns in page layout

~~~
dewiz
What? Microsoft is asking money for a product so that they can pay their
employees ? </sarcasm>

~~~
vetinari
That could be done with one time purchase. But subscription?

No, thanks.

~~~
serge2k
They don't want people paying mobile app prices for their office suite.

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timelined
This is one step closer towards an effective full Office Suite on Linux, which
I would be very happy about.

~~~
Alupis
> This is one step closer towards an effective full Office Suite on Linux

Are you referring to Microsoft Office specifically?

LibreOffice is a full-fledged office suite, is feature-complete for just about
99% of things you can do in MS Office, is free (both, as in beer and freedom),
and runs very well under Linux.

~~~
bduerst
I've noticed a considerable performance difference between Excel 2013 and the
latest LibreOffice Calc, on my dual boot Ubuntu + Win8 PC.

While I'm not saying a Linux port of Office would be just as fast as on Win8,
it is a noticeable difference.

~~~
Alupis
> While I'm not saying a Linux port of Office would be just as fast as on Win8

Why would it not be as fast on Linux?

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sirkneeland
And now the worst Office version is on Windows Phone.

I'm sure Windows 10 will improve that...eventually.

~~~
Aleman360
To be fair, the version coming for Windows Mobile 10 will adapt to provide a
desktop-like experience when you connect your phone to a monitor or TV. The
release cycles are just out of phase.

~~~
Bud
Yes. Because Microsoft is so likely to nail that user experience well, for a
market that is 2% of the mobile market on its best day.

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lam
Has anyone given presentations directly from your phone or tablet? I'd love to
hear your experience with the process -- setting up, projecting, navigating,
presenting.

More generally, I'd like to know if we have gotten to the point where work
(maybe not yet for coding and other heavy-duty stuffs) can be done on phones
and tablets, so you don't need to lug around your laptops. What are the main
hindrances? Screen size?

~~~
unsignedint
Somewhat related to screen size, but the biggest problem (at least for my use
case) is multitasking.

For instance, sometimes I translate documents, which requires an editor
(displaying original / result texts), a dictionary, a browser (for reference,
etc.) and maybe other texts and images open at the same time -- and switching
between those, let alone seeing them side by side is nearly impossible. (And
this is probably specific to Android's limitation, but when I switch back and
force between apps, there is no guarantee I will be getting back to where I
was -- I might have to open the app again, open the document, which makes it a
lot more disruptive than working on PC for most simple translation projects.)

Maybe this will improve, but simple copy and paste across different apps on
the phone is frustrating enough that I wouldn't personally do anything beyond
simple quick tasks on my phone.

~~~
lam
This is just an FYI. The Android issue you pointed out is actually an app
issue. In Android, there is a mechanism for saving the state of your app, so
that you can get back to the same place when you switch away from and then
back to the app. Some apps don't implement that (as a good practice), and it
is quite annoying when you run into it. I've seen that issue often, even in
apps built by large well-known companies.

I know what you mean regarding copy/paste. Maybe it is due to the touch-based
interface, but it is annoying regardless of whether it is on iOS or Android.

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frankiem_fm4
I replied to Microsoft's tweet asking if they fixed the credentials issue.

Waiting to hear back. Tweet:
[https://twitter.com/Microsoft/status/613753678453846016](https://twitter.com/Microsoft/status/613753678453846016)
Original issue: [http://bit.ly/1646Fkp](http://bit.ly/1646Fkp)

~~~
AaronFriel
I doubt it, the credential issue is due to the acquisition of Acompli. The
Outlook app is actually inherited from their app, and the architecture Acompli
used required you to provide the app (and their web service) with your
credentials.

The Office apps, I believe, all hook into Azure Active Directory, which means
they'll use your Windows Live credentials, ADFS credentials, or otherwise to
sign in. If your business uses ADFS, your password won't go to Microsoft.

~~~
o0-0o
I can't believe they are still storing my Acompli username after cancelling my
account months ago. Accompli is a joke, and was developed in China. I wonder
if my user info is still stored there. Sigh.

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robogimp
I've been using google docs instead of office on PC and android for 6 months
now, no regrets.

~~~
chronic32
It's only a matter of time before Google shuts public docs down as well.

~~~
fsloth
What? Google is pushing it's drive and docs heavily to corporate users. I
don't see how shutting docs would help those sales.

~~~
brixon
He is referring to the fact that Google has closed a lot of apps it made in
the past. If you start a Google app, make sure you have a path to get off it.

~~~
fsloth
Hmm, are there any that were actually sold as corporate tools . Wave etc. were
freemium experiments as far as I can recall...

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methou
iirc there was an official MS Office for Android way before this, at least was
planned/developed.

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cryptophreak
Silly Microsoft, it's just called "Android", not "Android Phone".

~~~
lrem
You may be surprised that a number of apps for Android work only on tablets,
while some others have separate versions for phones and tablets.

~~~
RyanZAG
Sure, but that's not Android's fault. It would be like blaming Microsoft if
developers released 'Windows 17" screen' and 'Windows 24" screen' versions of
applications instead of just putting both UI layouts in the app and switching.
Although I guess on Windows you have the 32bit and 64bit versions of
applications available for download half the time...

Android actually makes it easier to do that (define custom UIs for different
device settings) than any other platform I know of, so it's definitely the
developers fault if you see that.

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higherpurpose
These are still crippled and written from scratch "mobile" apps, that don't
share many of the desktop Office's features, right?

~~~
computer
No. They actually share >95% of the desktop code-base:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HROqnw-
nf4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HROqnw-nf4)

~~~
DiabloD3
Of all the comments so far on this, this is maybe the coolest. You can really
see how Office on OSX has shaped up (if you follow the beta; identical Windows
and OSX support on launch day instead of OSX getting it 2 years later like
it's been for the past decade), but I'm surprised Android also shares a
significant amount of the code base.

It cuts down on bugs, and also makes sure the bugs that are on the desktop are
also the same ones on my phone (principal of least surprise at work).

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bitmapbrother
The apps are pretty bloated coming in at over 100MB for each app. Although, it
looks like they finally figured out that you don't release a tablet only app
for Android, but an app that adapts to the device you're using.

It's still disappointing that they allow dropbox saves and not Google drive,
though. But, this is easily remedied by saving the file locally.

~~~
andybak
Not integrating with Google Drive isn't really the main issue - it's not
integrating with the system-wide file dialog that would automatically enable
Google Drive support.

If this is the casualty of politics then it's a big thing to throw under the
bus.

~~~
vetinari
Incidentally, they do use system-wide file dialog since this version. It is
possible to use storage access framework providers now.

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davidgerard
This is because of the impending LibreOffice for Android.
[https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Android](https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Android)

~~~
segmondy
I highly doubt that. Microsoft has been embracing a lot of things lately.
Moving towards Open source and open platforms. I don't believe it has anything
to do with LibreOffice but everything to do with change in their attitude.

~~~
pmontra
I'd say that competition prompted that change of attitude. LibreOffice is part
of it. We've been raised with Word and Excel, then we discovered that LO and
GoogleDocs were enough in the vast majority of cases and Windows was not
necessary. Microsoft could be late with going were people moved to. Not too
late, but they can count they money they didn't get.

~~~
quanticle
To say that LibreOffice was anything more than a very marginal part of
Microsoft's decision to refocus is laughable. The real threat to Microsoft is
the movement towards BYOD for corporate customers. If users are bringing their
own devices, then Office has to work on whatever devices those users have.
Corporate customers aren't switching from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice.
They're switching from Microsoft Office to Google Apps, or other hosted
systems. Bringing (a better) Office experience to Android is Microsoft
building a bulwark against Google Docs, not LibreOffice.

