
Microsoft launches Office for iPad - msoliman
http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2014/03/27/microsoft-unveils-office-ipad/?utm_medium=Spreadus&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=social%20media&awesm=tnw.to_s3Js0
======
sz4kerto
MS is changing, and make no mistake, this has started with Ballmer. If you
watch(ed) the press conf, it's quite apparent. App store for Android, Office
for iPad, AD for Azure.. quite nice stuff, that's what we expect from a
software giant: just release stuff for everything, everywhere, and make things
be able to work with each other nicely.

Good to see that, competition is always good for the users, and Apple, Google
and MS all seem to be quite strong on their fields (although Google is the
most fashionable nowadays).

~~~
amaks
It's not changing, expensive subscription for editing is the proof. Same
greedy corporation which cares about its cash cows.

~~~
ihuman
Microsoft is a software company, and Office is one of their biggest products.
Why would they make it free? While they do give out OneNote for free, it is
not a major part of Office. Making Word, excel, and PowerPoint free would hurt
them much more than it would help them.

~~~
smacktoward
The same reason a friendly drug dealer would offer a first hit free: to get
you hooked.

Once you have a bunch of important documents locked up in Office file formats
-- which Office is the only app guaranteed to be able to read reliably -- you
have a great incentive down the road to start sending money to Microsoft so
you can continue to access them.

~~~
pionar
I believe that's what they're doing, with the "free to view, pay to edit"
model.

~~~
niels_olson
maybe it should be free to edit, pay to share?

------
mikestew
I wonder if they aren't a little late on this. I assume that I'm not the only
one that found out I can get along just fine without Office on an iPad (or in
my own personal case, get along just fine without Office at all). If the free
Pages/Keynote/Numbers doesn't do it, I probably need a "real" computer anyway.

That was always the real danger I saw for Microsoft as they delayed supporting
iOS. Folks buy the devices anyway, despite their lack of Office. Then folks
find out that they can do what they want to do despite that lack of Office.
Maybe they've been using it by default, not because they really need it. Then
Microsoft comes out with Office for iOS and there's a collective shrug and a
"meh".

~~~
hrktb
I have yet to see any iOS app doing a reliable job in even just displaying
Excel and Word documents.

A long time ago I thought that LibreOffice or Pages were close enough, good
enough to not need Office, but in reality there is still some random document
once in a while that has the history messed up, or the layout hides a part of
the text, or images are not at the right place. It might be 98% OK, but you
can't always afford to give up on the 2% of information your are missing.

Forcing Office users to give a sensible version of the files when sharing is
the best solution, but having a native iOS version of Office for when that's
not an option is invaluable.

~~~
codeulike
_but in reality there is still some random document once in a while that has
the history messed up, or the layout hides a part of the text, or images are
not at the right place_

We really should get a campaign going to persuade people to keep their Word
and Powerpoint formats simple. Usually interop problems only happen when
people do weird formatting things that look terrible anyway.

~~~
hrktb
IMO the issue is more with the document format than what people are doing with
it. The most recurrent problem I've seen was with text that was deleted at
some point appearing instead of the current version.

What I'd really want in the first place is people to care if what they are
sharing is in the right format.

When a non technical clients asks a designer to see some early drafts of a
site's UI, they will usually receive rendered jpg or png files, not Photoshop
or Illustrator files. Most school teachers would be pissed of if students were
to turn in home assignments in tex. I find it inconsiderate to send me docx
files for documents that are read only on my side, just send me the PDF
instead.

------
chrisdevereux
The pricing structure is interesting: Free to view, requires an expensive
Office 365 subscription to edit.

Seems like they're missing an opportunity to drive adoption of Office as an
online platform. Why would I want to publish using Office instead of Google
Docs when I can't assume that people I send the Office doc to will be able to
edit it? Sure, Office is better, but not better enough to overcome that.

If it was free to edit, but $$$ to publish, Office 365 would be much more
compelling. Especially since the situation w/r/t mobile looks much better than
Google Docs.

Edit: My point here is about network effects, not whether the subscription is
worth it. Office previously benefited from them, but it's vulnerable as a
cloud platform given the free alternatives from Google and even Apple.

~~~
Livven
Apparently lots of people (still) don't know about it but there have been free
browser versions of Word/Excel/PowerPoint/OneNote since 2010. They were
recently rebranded from Office Web Apps to Office Online, along with easier
access directly from office.com. Here's the relevant HN thread
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7302221](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7302221)

If you publish/upload the document to OneDrive (7 GB is free) you can send the
link to anyone and then they can view and edit the document for free in the
browser, just like with Google Docs.

~~~
herokusaki
That office suite looks nice, much like most of Microsoft's web presence. I'm
tempted to use it.

I can't help but wonder, however, how would you expect Office Online to
compare to Google Docs in terms of privacy (including in the long run)?

------
iaskwhy
Some comments here refer the potencially high cost of the membership for
Office 365. It seems like there will be a new plan for $7/m ($70/y) supporting
2 devices[1]. Like the previous plan, it also seems to include 1h of Skype
calls.

[1] [http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/13/announcing-
office-365-per...](http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/13/announcing-
office-365-personal-a-new-way-to-access-office-365/)

------
msoliman
Excel and PowerPoint are live already. Excel:
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for-
ipad/id5...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for-
ipad/id586683407?mt=8)

PowerPoint: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-powerpoint-for-
ipa...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-powerpoint-for-
ipad/id586449534?mt=8)

~~~
msoliman
And Word: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-word-for-
ipad/id58...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-word-for-
ipad/id586447913?mt=8)

------
bane
Before anybody thinks this is weird, or unusual. Microsoft has quite often
been more pragmatic about the platform offerings for their office suite than
elsewhere. After all, Office exists and has existed on Apple products for a
very long time. It's more unusual that it _hasn 't_ been on the iProducts than
anything.

~~~
thematt
I may be remembering wrong, but isn't the fact that Office existed on the Mac
for so long also a result of the deal that Microsoft and Apple struck back in
the 90's? Microsoft would keep making Office for the Mac and in exchange Apple
would drop it's patent suit against them.

~~~
mwfunk
No, Word and Excel started out on the Mac and came to Windows later. I think
what you're referring to is, there was a deal in the '90s where Microsoft
helped out Apple, which included investment and maintaining an Internet
Explorer Mac port (this was a much bigger deal back then). This gave the
company some breathing room. At the time Apple was circling the drain and
everyone assumed that they would be out of business in a matter of years if
not months. This was the same era as Microsoft's antitrust suits, so what
Microsoft got out of it was a (very weak at the time) competitor that they
could continue pointing to as evidence that they weren't a monopoly.

~~~
bane
According to WP, it started as a Xenix application, made its way over to DOS
(to compete with WordPerfect or WordStar IIR), then Mac, then a few other
platforms before finally ending up on Windows in 89.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_word](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_word)

------
jmspring
A review comparing the Apple apps (native and cloud), MSFT Office (native and
cloud), and Google Docs compare would be interesting. Specifically usability
(touch as well as external keyboard attached), on and offline modes.

Playing up the ribbon in the presentation? Curious as ribbon really has
triggered a love it or hate it reaction.

~~~
jasonlotito
Considering Apple's Cloud apps are still in beta, that would be unfair. I
can't edit my KeyNote presentation in the cloud at the moment, so yeah.

~~~
veidr
I don't think it would be unfair. If we're competing in the same space and you
have a solid, mature app and all I have is a buggy beta, that means you're
winning.

------
gum_ina_package
I'm really hoping MS becomes a company that offers consistent and great
experiences no matter who's walled garden you're in.

------
mattkevan
It's great to see Office on iPad - hopefully it'll encourage Google to improve
their terrible Drive app.

Our company moved entirely to Google Docs about 5 years ago. Being sent a Word
file is like being handed a CD ROM - a brief moment for a 'Oh, one of those'
mental gear change and a few minutes rummaging in the dead tech box for an
external drive. Or in Office's case something that can reliably parse the file

------
DigitalSea
Finally. Yes, there are alternatives to Microsoft Office for the iPad, but
make no mistake, none of them even come close to that of Microsoft Office. I
just downloaded Word and Excel, couldn't find a flaw in either of them. The
subscription part for editing sucks, but subscriptions are fairly cheap.

We are witnessing a new Microsoft that began when new CEO Satya Nadella took
the helm. This is his first of many acts to turn the company around, instead
of the previous closed door approach Balmer preferred.

It's good to see Satya doesn't appear to be full brainwashed by the Microsoft
cool-aid. This isn't 1998, Windows is no longer the dominant platform and it
makes sense to open up your products to other platforms, especially given
Microsoft's failure to break ground in the mobile market.

Now all Satya needs to do is bring back the start menu in Windows 9, get rid
of that horrid Metro tile interface for non touch devices (or at the very
least give users the option of the new Metro interface or classic desktop) and
I'll be ecstatic.

~~~
jsolson
You realize that this had to have been in development for months if not years
prior to this release, right?

~~~
randomafrican
There are been rumours saying that it has been ready for months if not years.

The decision to release it is Nadella's.

------
msoliman
Nadella said "Let me go to my iPad"! I bet that wasn't allowed at the time of
Gates and Ballmer.

~~~
yulaow
Well, Ballmer was famous for his enrage moments when someone show up at some
meeting using an iphone [1]

[1]
[http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2009/09/ba...](http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2009/09/ballmer_spots_microsoft_employee_with_iphone_at_company_meeting.html?page=all)

------
robomartin
As a long time MS customer their pricing strategies and product segmentation
still bother the heck out of me. I get it, but I don't. I wish they'd flatten
the offering to one OS and one Office suite and be done with it. Here's what's
happening with the tablet versions of Office:

    
    
        A qualifying Office 365 subscription is required to edit and create documents. 
        Qualifying plans include:
    
        Office 365 Home     
          $99.99 PER YEAR
    
        Office 365 Small Business Premium
           $150.00 per user per year
    
        Office 365 Midsize Business
           $180.00 per user per year
    
        Office 365 E3 and E4 (Enterprise and Government)
           $264.00 per user per year
    
        Office 365 Education A3 and A4
           Students: $36.00 per user per year
           Teachers: $72.00 per user per year
    
        Office 365 Pro Plus     
           $?????
    
        Office 365 University
           Same as educational license?
    
    

Not sure how to think about this. If I had to pay for my Office 2003 and 2007
Office Pro legal licenses every year it'd amount to a large pile of money. I
don't have any issues licensing software at all. You could buy a couple of top
of the line German cars with the various licenses for engineering and office
software we have.

That said, monthly subscriptions I avoid like the plague. Why? All is fine
while business is good. When things aren't great subscriptions bleed much-
needed capital. If cancelling your subscriptions means taking away such things
as Office and email you are screwed and have to take money from some other
part of the business to keep them going.

That's why I've always run our own email servers and always purchased licenses
of software like Office Pro. We don't have to update the software every year.
When things are good --and if it makes sense-- you upgrade. During lean times
you have the option to not spend any money on upgrades and still have full
usage of your software. Having experienced this a couple of times over the
years I don't like the idea of any mission critical service being tied to a
monthly per-user licence, it's a bad idea.

Beyond that, I wish MS would stop this nonsense of having so many layers to
their products. One Windows and one Office, none of this "Home", "Home
Premium", "Pro", "Pro Plus", "Really Really Pro Premium Plus", etc.

------
rayiner
It goes to show a lot about the situation in Microsoft that they didn't manage
to ship this last year for Surface RT, where it might have done the platform a
lot of good.

------
mark_l_watson
I think that it is cool for Microsoft to release Office 360 for OS X and iPad.

I do a lot of writing (I am pretty much addicted to writing books). I use my
iPad for lots of casual writing using a good text editor and markdown files in
Dropbox (target is leanpub.com). For some writing I like having Pages on both
iOS and OS X with iCloud storage.

If Office 360 ends up being a compelling product for iPad and my MacBook Air,
then the $99/year is a no-brainer decision.

~~~
codeulike
Is Office 360 a version of Office 365 for the XBox 360?

------
footpath
Looks like the non-tablet iPhone/Android phone versions of Office Mobile have
gone free to use as well, forgoing the previous requirement of an active
Office 365 subscription:

[http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/27/announcing-the-office-
you...](http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/27/announcing-the-office-you-love-now-
on-the-ipad/)

------
codeulike
While we're talking about Microsoft, it strikes me that of the big players in
2014, Microsoft are the most diversified, even if they're no longer in the
lead in most areas. Will that diversification (Office, Windows, Enterprise,
Azure, XBox, Phones) give them more longevity? Or are they really in danger of
fading into insignificance?

------
vmarsy
I'm wondering what would happen if, without paying for the office 365
subscription, I try to edit a document stored in the cloud. Will it open a
Safari tab with the free office.com online Word/Excel/Powerpoint ?

In other words : Is there an "Open with Word Online" button for non office 365
subscribers?

~~~
quanpod
full disclosure: I work for Microsoft on the Office Online team

I do not believe that feature is in Office for iPad and you should be able to
point your browser to OneDrive.com/office.com to get to your documents using
Word/Excel/PowerPoint/OneNote Online in the meantime.

This is a really interesting idea though so I'll bring it up with the team,
thanks!

------
dudus
I wonder if Apple gets a cut of the subscription pricing.

I also bet any other company would not get away with a model like that. Apple
requires that you make payments through their AppStore or in-app Payment
systems so it can collect its cut. Good luck trying to publishing something
with the same model on the App Store.

~~~
bri3d
It looks like Office 365 subscriptions are available as an In-App Purchase
(seen on the sidebar here : [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-
for-ipad/id5...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-excel-for-
ipad/id586683407?mt=8) ), so Apple get their cut of the revenue and Microsoft
are above-the-board in terms of App Store regulations.

Naturally if you buy a subscription from outside the app, Apple don't get a
cut - that's how everything works and as long as you don't give the user a way
to get to the non-Apple subscription payment system from inside the app, Apple
is fine with that.

~~~
rrhyne
Sidebar: Apple does not allow you to provide a link to a website where you can
market or upgrade a SaaS app that does not use the app store subscription
model. Does anyone have any experience with denoting features which are locked
to paid users without running afoul of this rule?

------
plg
If it means we will have an actual word processor on iOS, all the better.

I for one am deeply disappointed with the direction Apple has taken with
iWork.

Not least of which is the (a) removal of features and (b) incompatibility with
recent versions of their own software [this has rendered large portions of my
documents unreadable]

~~~
gress
They have put the removed features back in.

------
batoure
It is with a certain amount of amusement that I note that this version of
office (which looks really cool) is significantly more optimized for touch
than the version of office that I have for my MS Surface. That is some what
disappointing.

~~~
outside1234
No it's not. Its encouraging - Microsoft is putting their muscle where the
market share is, not based on some religious belief.

~~~
batoure
Nice... But lets look at the facts. 180 million ipads (of any generation, not
all will be able to run this new version of office) currently in circulation.
110 million windows 8 PC's active as of sept 2013.... so yes I agree that
microsoft should put their money where their market share is... THEIR market
share not apple's, with the decline of xp that number of winodws 8 users is
expected to sky rocket... so ya it would be nice to have an updated consistent
version of office.

[http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/there-are-now-
over-110-mil...](http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/there-are-now-
over-110-million-windows-8-users)

[http://ipod.about.com/od/ipadmodelsandterms/f/ipad-sales-
to-...](http://ipod.about.com/od/ipadmodelsandterms/f/ipad-sales-to-date.htm)

~~~
throwawaymsft
But what is a Windows 8 PC?

Just because a PC is sold with Win8 (because prior versions aren't available)
doesn't mean people are using it as such. They had to bring back "boot to
desktop" as a configuration option, and 60% of win8 machines launch metro less
than once a day
([https://www.soluto.com/reports](https://www.soluto.com/reports)).

~~~
batoure
so case and point, metro is a pretty cool in function but lacks the apps to
make it truly useful... So maybe the company trying to push it should make
some. also you cited a link to a 404 page.... and additionally only someone
not on windows 8 would believe a statistic like that its not possible to use
many of the features of the OS without going into the metro interface... I am
hoping that maybe your quote is that "60% of windows 8 machines launch metro
apps less than once a day" but that seems like a statistic without a method of
measure...

~~~
tanzam75
All Metro apps are launched in a hosting process. Thus, the Soluto software
would simply look for that particular process EXE to determine if Metro apps
are launched.

However, most OS features do not trigger a new hosting process. For example,
connecting to a Wi-Fi network, or opening the charms. (Control Panel would get
detected as a Metro app, but how many people open Control Panel every day?)

So while it's not perfect, it is possible to make a first stab at measurement.

------
dsaravel
$119 (in Australia, at least) is too much for me to try editing capabilities.
How about you keep the price but only prevent me from saving? I need to know
how it feels editing the documents before I commit to such price.

~~~
dave84
The Office 365 website offers a free months trial.

~~~
dsaravel
Ok, but it may be completely different from using the actual app.

For example, GMail app is way slower and irresponsive in the iPad than
accessing directly from gmail.com in Safari.

~~~
quanpod
The trial should let you download and use the real app - not sure if the
confusion was because the poster above said "Office 365 website"

------
rafeed
Wow. Office for iPad actually looks pretty great. This is great news for Apple
and the Windows users out there who didn't want to use iPad for lack of
official MS Office products.

------
chmars
Why does Microsoft offer not only the single apps but also one app with all
single apps included? That seems to be rather unusual for iOS apps.

As a side note, App Store search is still lacking: Looking for 'microsoft
office' did not result in a single hit related to actual apps from Microsoft.
Googling for App Store links to the four new apps was easier in the end …

------
rottyguy
What would be nice if you can read and comment/highlight for free and edit for
pay. I suspect one typical use case is to have someone send around a doc to
solicit comments and incorporate them subsequent. In fact, this model kind of
enforces that flow so you don't have multiple people editing it and forking
the original.

------
arrc
They've also started using open-source technologies like Node.js and
javascript (must be typescript).

Microsoft is finally adopting open source with open arms.

source:
[http://inessential.com/2014/02/04/azure_takes_over](http://inessential.com/2014/02/04/azure_takes_over)

~~~
romanovcode
Also released MVC/WebApi/EntityFramework to public was pretty big deal.

------
the_watcher
To me, there needs to be a step change in information input for the Office
Suite to be something I'd use on an iPad. Word processing and speadsheet
manipulation are so text intensive. Interested to try it out though.

------
tmarman
I was really hoping the "developers" portion would announce a Xamarin
acquisition. Maybe at BUILD, but curiously as this talk was going on I got an
email from Xamarin telling me to visit them at BUILD.

------
be5invis
Microsoft releases Office for iPad just looks like that Nintendo publishes
Super Mario Bros on Xbox!

So, are they going to discard Windows (|phone|tablet|...) platform and become
a pure third-party? It reminds me of Sega.

~~~
ams6110
At some point you have to decide whether the the perfect (everyone using
Windows phones/tablets and MS Software) is the enemy of the good (a lot of
people using MS Software).

Microsoft has for whatever reason never hit the target with mobile platforms.
I guess the Windows Phone is decent enough by some accounts but was just way
too late to the party.

So they can try to make money selling mobile software for a mobile platform
that nobody uses, or they can just accept reality and sell the software on all
platforms.

~~~
be5invis
In the console game world, softwares(games) can decide the fate of consoles.
Dreamcast failed BEFORE PS2 is released, due to Final Fantasy X, XI and XII.
Another example is that Xbox survived because of Halo.

In my opnion, Office is the ace software of Microsoft. It is even the de-facto
standard. Therefore Microsoft should keep them exclusive on their platform.

~~~
dublinben
Keeping Office off the iPad until now hasn't prevented millions of customers
from buying them, or pushed any significant number of users to Windows 8 (RT)
tablets instead. Microsoft's indispensable programs haven't been sorely missed
for the last four years.

------
eitally
The issue I find is that spreadsheets are really unpleasant to work with on a
tablet (or any touch display). Given that, things like QuickOffice or similar
work mostly just fine for viewing.

------
tjmc
Question - does the equation editor work in Word? When viewing Word docs on
iOS previously I could only see about 70% of my mechanical engineering lab
reports without it.

------
beyondcompute
When will Microsoft launch it's own iPad (or a product as good as it).
"Launching something for concurrents' successful platform". That's weird.

------
orkoden
The Microsoft Office Apps don't integrate well with other iOS apps. There's no
open-in in other apps and no support for AirPrint or other printing options.

------
dalek2point3
i wonder if it will keep getting regular updates and support too -- what
product cycle will it be on? will it have clippy -- the office assistant? so
many questions.

~~~
coldpie
> will it have clippy -- the office assistant?

Siri integration, obviously. We've come full-circle.

------
encoderer
This looks very well done. This is exciting. Honestly, I've almost entirely
transitioned from Office to Google Docs. I could see this pulling me back in.

------
LeicaLatte
If it feel this expensive on iOS, this pricing has no chance on other
platforms. And Google Docs is not going anywhere with this pricing for sure.

------
dman
Does this mean Office for linux is in the works? At least for the corporate
distros like Redhat, Suse and Ubuntu?

------
Pxtl
They missed the competition for IE _completely_ and were way too late with
IE7. They missed the competition from the mobile world and dragged their feet
a bit with WP7. They're not going to lose Office too, which is their biggest
cash-cow. Without Office, entire corporations will no longer see Microsoft as
a "must-have" company.

So yeah, iPad.

------
BadassFractal
Wonder how astroturfed this comment section is.

------
amaks
"Requires subscription for editing"

This is lame, IMO, and so typical for MS.

~~~
k-mcgrady
How is this lame? If you only require viewing docs on the iPad you can do that
for free. That's fantastic and most people will probably be satisfied with
that. A subscription is only to edit and I believe gives you access to Office
365. For software you use daily a subscription shouldn't be a problem.

~~~
mediaman
It's just the anti-corporate parade of users on HN who aren't used to paying
for software. The majority of users here are wholly outside the target market.

There's a huge universe of companies more than willing to pay for these, and
it's about time that MS take advantage of re-establishing Office as a cross-
device dominant platform for the everyday office worker, rather than losing
its edge as an office platform because of silly hardware / software politics
internal to their own organization.

~~~
yaeger
>It's just the anti-corporate parade of users on HN who aren't used to paying
for software.

Close. We aren't used to _keep_ paying for software with no end in sight.
Don't know about you but I subscribe to things I know I will be using
regularly. Like daily. Guess were office software falls? Not under the daily
usage at home.

Am I supposed to start writing word docs each week and mail them to my family
just so I don't feel ripped of cause I am continuously paying for office?

Just wait until the next Windows costs 100 bucks a year. Cause that is where
this is headed and apparently people don't seem to have any problem overpaying
Microsoft for software.

~~~
silverlake
> Guess were office software falls? Not under the daily usage at home.

So don't buy it. I don't own Photoshop, but I don't go to Adobe threads and
decry that they charge money for their products.

------
zyadsherif
Finally they've accepted the fact that they need to optimize to apple
products, the Gates mentality has been blocking innovation in this area and
this might be the breakthrough !

~~~
k-mcgrady
Huh? What does this have to do with Gates? Under Gates leadership MS has been
developing software for Apple since the 90's.

Edit: Fixed possible factual error.

~~~
chrisdevereux
They've released for Apple since basically forever. The Apple II shipped with
Microsoft Basic for a while, IIRC.

~~~
rimantas
IIRC the MS Excel, a cornerstone of the MS Office was first released for Mac,
and only later for Windows.

