

Office for iOS may be coming, but does it really matter? - joxie
http://www.macworld.com/article/2023572/office-for-ios-may-be-coming-but-does-it-really-matter-.html

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dizzystar
This is the most bizarre article I've read in a long time as it does not
reflect anything close the reality I currently live in.

I am currently seeking a job, and just about every place I went to interview
has asked me to bring a dead-tree copy of my resume. If I didn't have a copy
with me, the interviewer always had a printed copy so he or she could take
notes on it.

Every place that I have applied has asked for either a .docx or .pdf.

At my last job, I was responsible for sifting resumes. Just about everyone
sent me a .docx and very very few sent me a .pdf. I would posit that very few
people actually know how to create a PDF.

I can't confirm this, but I am suspicious of anything that says markdown is
commonly used and serves as a replacement for most people. I am comfortable
enough in this suspicion that I will counter, without data, that the vast
majority of people don't know what markdown is, much less how to use it.

The MS Suite is well superior to anything else out there that I have used. If
you need a full document product that can do advanced layouts, there is
nothing else that can replace it.

People don't use Power Point? Really? People don't use Outlook? Is this all a
joke? Just about everyone that I have dealt with use these items, and no, I
never worked at a Fortune 500 company.

So, why isn't there an Office or any other Suite on your iPad? Think about it:

I can type between 70 and 80 wpm on my computer. I can't thumb-type in a
partial keyboard very fast at all. Could you imagine trying to read a
spreadsheet on a tablet? I know you can, but I'd prefer to not bother
discovering how much of a nightmare this would become.

This last point contradicts the above, but saying that X product doesn't exist
on a device doesn't mean that X product is worthless or dead. I don't have
Illustrator on my tablet, but I don't assume that there is no one using it at
all.

~~~
iuguy
We ditched Office back in 2007 and haven't looked back. We use a mix of
OpenOffice and Google Docs for business and the only time we ever have any
trouble is when someone sends a document that's really badly formatted.

I use Markdown myself but I don't know how many people at work do. I suspect
some people are using it without being aware that it's markdown as my style is
copied by other people looking for a clean way to present structure in text.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but there are different realities that people
live in, and for the author his points (however strangely put) may be valid.

~~~
dizzystar
His points are fine for what they reflect, which is his own reality, but I
don't think his points are a correct reflection of reality for many people,
and the authoritative air rubs me the wrong way.

We straddle a large spectrum of worlds here in America, which covers people
who don't even have a computer at all (and yes they work in offices as well)
to people who are early-adopters and techno-gurus. The latter people tend to
bloviate about their bleeding-edge products and working tools as if the entire
world does exactly what they do, and this seldom reflects reality. This self-
centered view of the world seems to be the trend in tech writing these days. I
just wonder if tech writers ever have to pick up the phone and talk to anyone
outside of their narrow circles. While I understand he is writing about his
own reality, his extrapolation to the rest of the world is [x].

------
Wilya
Saying Office is irrelevant because bloggers don't need it is like saying
Eclipse is irrelevant because painters don't need it.

I'm more surprised by the fact that Microsoft would push for selling Office on
iOS. Wouldn't they give up a significant part of the attract of Windows and of
their vendor lock-in by doing so ? Office is one of the big reasons why I
still have windows around, but maybe that's just me.

~~~
forgottenpaswrd
"Wouldn't they give up a significant part of the attract of Windows and of
their vendor lock-in by doing so ?"

Yeah, but they could control it. They could always make the iOS experience
poorer than Windows so people associate i0S=BAD, surface=GOOD.

On the other hand you have the millions of people that are using the Ipad.
Without Office, they need an alternative, and they will find one. Then when
they get used to it they will discover they don't really need Office at all.

MS Office was not always the best Office suite out there.

~~~
dear
There is iWorks now.

------
natemcguire
I'm a little surprised the author doesn't comment extensively on the
availability and use of google docs as a useful and FREE (or fairly cheap)
replacement for the office suite. Having been a hardcore enterprise user of MS
Office (excel, ppt, access, to a lesser extent word) for the first 5 years of
my career, I'm very familiar with the value these software suites play in
large organizations. Shared tools make collaboration easier and shared formats
make operations across the globe even possible.

Google spreadsheets still a little work to do but excel for Mac is is the same
position. So you replace everything MS office can do with a free suite of
tools that are a near enough equivalent and what do you get? Just like we saw
the personalization of tech in enterprise organizations with hardware (buying
and using our own iPhones/iPads and saying screw centralized IT), you will see
the same thing happen with software. Add in the collaborative aspects of
google drive vs emailing docx files back and forth and you see clear
advantages to choosing something other than MS Office.

What happens when that next 3com or IBM sprouts up using google docs and
becomes a multinational 100k+ employee organization? Do they switch to MS
Office? Maybe, but I doubt it would be the best choice for companies in the
future.

------
pohl
Are incessant references to Betteridge's law of headlines passé? Never mind,
I'll be that guy. I think it works nicely in this case.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridges_law_of_headlines>

~~~
theorique
_Are incessant references to Betteridge's law of headlines passé?_

I see what you did there. Well done.

------
Osmium
Judging by the amount of comments in this thread, I might venture to answer
"no?"

In seriousness, I doubt very many people need much more than a simple document
viewer when they're on the go. I can't imagine many people have done more than
correct a typo on their phone...

~~~
jonknee
iOS runs on tablets too, I could see office being very useful. QuickOffice is
popular, the market certainly exists.

------
OGinparadise
_"In the last 15 years, Microsoft Office has gone from a must-have product to
largely irrelevant to the success of the biggest product category in
technology: mobile computing"_

Yeah, since Android and iPhone came businesses no longer need Word or Excel.
/sarcasm

~~~
misnome
"In the last 15 years, Microsoft Office has gone from a must-have product to
largely irrelevant to the success of the biggest product category in
technology: mobile computing"

"Office has gone ... to largely irrelevant to the success of ... mobile
computing"

Since it hasn't been on any of the "mobile computing" devices, I'm not sure
why the sarcasm is needed. It's not like this sentence is saying "Office is
now irrelevant", just that it hasn't contributed to this particular area.

~~~
OGinparadise
One scenario: Businesses use Office. Business are still doing their work
largely on desktops but if there's an Office App for iPad some might be more
likely to get iPads instead of laptops.

~~~
rednukleus
Almost no businessmen are going to go iPad only. Many businessmen are going to
go Desktop/Laptop + Tablet, and in the future many are going to go for
something like a docked Surface Pro.

The threat that iPads pose to Enterprise is completely overblown. They aren't
going to stop buying desktops/laptops, they are just going to buy _both_
desktops/laptops and tablets.

