[Fritzly]

Originally Posted by efjay

I find it odd that people say they want MS to focus more on WM and be more aggressive but at the same time are calling for MS to make services that would make WM devices more appealing to other platforms? What is the point of having a WM device then if there is no benefit from it being part of the Windows family and offering a more intergrated experience?

I approach the issue from a different angle: I would not risk to jeopardize in any way the market share OFFICE has in an attempt to promote WM. If you check the latest quarterly report from MS you will see that the bulk of MS revenues come from Office. Undermining in any way the appeal of the Suite would be, IMO, a huge mistake. If they want to promote WM they should accelerate the development of WM7 and brake the lock that Carriers have on the devices; the latter would be the most important thing because, outside the US, the majority of people buy SIM free phones.

[Fritzly]

Originally Posted by efjay

I find it odd that people say they want MS to focus more on WM and be more aggressive but at the same time are calling for MS to make services that would make WM devices more appealing to other platforms? What is the point of having a WM device then if there is no benefit from it being part of the Windows family and offering a more intergrated experience?

I approach the issue from a different angle: I would not risk to jeopardize in any way the market share OFFICE has in an attempt to promote WM. If you check the latest quarterly report from MS you will see that the bulk of MS revenues come from Office. Undermining in any way the appeal of the Suite would be, IMO, a huge mistake. If they want to promote WM they should accelerate the development of WM7 and brake the lock that Carriers have on the devices; the latter would be the most important thing because, outside the US, the majority of people buy SIM free phones.

[kerrins]

Thanks for the post about OpenOffice. I was just wondering about that. I think Google docs is pretty good too. It bothers me that MS charges between $150-800 for various levels of MS Office. I'm a fairly basic guy. I need to be able to write a letter, I need to make a basic presentation without swoops, merges, fading, etc. I need a pretty robust version of Excel, it needs to handle formulas. And I like Outlook. Gmail is fine, but I like the format of Outlook better. If Google or OO will do everything I need for free, why should I pay a few hundred for MS?

[Rocco Augusto]

Originally Posted by vector

I just want to drop a plug for OpenOffice 3. If you haven't tried OOo for a long time you should give it a go! It does everything I need. It's had native support for pocket word and excel files for a long time. It has PDF creation built into all it's apps.

OpenOffice is slow and clunky and lacks a majority of the must needed features that a lot of people use Office for. If you're a home user you're fine, if you're a corporate user or professional user, there is no substitute for Office.

[Rocco Augusto]

Originally Posted by efjay

Seems to me there's a double standard being applied to MS here. You can only use an iphone/ipod with itunes or are required to have a Gmail address to use an Android phone or have no support for Google docs (which the iphone has) but MS should open up their services to their competitors while these same competitors lock out WM devices from their services.

It isn't a double standard at all. The iPhone has to be tied to iTunes because that is how they transfer data to the device. This is no different than the Zune being tied to the Zune desktop software.

Google's Android operating system was built around Google services such as calendar, contacts, push mail, etc. Without having a Google account you cannot access these features that they OS was built for, hence like the iPhone and iTunes, you need a Google account for the Google Services to manage that data.

Microsoft Office is account and platform agnostic (and by platform I just mean Windows and OS X,) you don't need any special accounts to use office. You don't need an application to sync information with Office, therefore it isn't a double standard as you described above. Those devices are tied to those applications and services because they need them to work.

A large chunk of Microsoft's Office revenue comes from individuals that use Office on non Microsoft platforms. To ignore these users when you release the online version will just eat into Microsoft's profits.

[efjay]

Originally Posted by Rocco Augusto

It isn't a double standard at all. The iPhone has to be tied to iTunes because that is how they transfer data to the device. This is no different than the Zune being tied to the Zune desktop software.

***long quote trimmed by moderator JD***

Just as you say, you need an itunes or google account to access those services - from their devices. You can still access itunes or gmai from a pc. I think MS should take the same approach with Office online access from mobile phones - make it only available from WM devices - or make the full functionality available only from WM devices.

I'm not sure which customers MS will be ignoring by doing this, how many mobile OS's currently run Office Mobile? Only 1 and thats WM. Even if the iphone or android phone had a program to view office docs it wont be MS Office mobile and so should not be expected to provide the same functinality if MS chooses to closely intergrate its online offering with its mobile version. Other programs like Quickoffice are available for other platforms but not the Office Mobile suite itself. So why will these customers feel ignored or feel any impact when they never had the functionality in the first place? And they should still be able to use office online if they have a standards compliant browser but the full functionality should only be available from WM devices thus providing a reason to consider a WM device purchase. Much the same way as having to buy an ipod to use the music collection on itunes.

[Dyvim]

Originally Posted by tnels!

Office 14???!!! Isn't 14 < 2007?

No, Office 2007 is v12 (Office 2003 was v11, etc.). Apparently they will skip unlucky 13 and jump straight to version 14. But the question is when? Late 2009? Early 2010? That's still a ways off.

[haveblue128]

As a technical beta-tester for Office XP, 2003 and 2007--XP and 2007 took a year of testing- this will likely be the platform for MS to make the jump from selling discs, to becoming a subscription service. While I am sure that some mobile functionality from Live Labs Silverlight and similar apps will add depth to view, don't expect any major system changes.

While this was inevitable, it is a sad turn of events. Symantec has shown the subscription business model to be as robust as was the direct sales route. In addition, it provides a far more predictable ROI. Unfortunately, this will be a rough process for both the firm and consumers as MS believes that people are willing to huge bucks for their "wonder warez." Office Live provided MS a small view on how the process would work and I am sure some change from Live will appear in O14.

It is going to take time and be an unpleasant change for many, however. MS has never been terribly realistic about the value of their goods yet we compliant sheep continue to buy and when I don't get it comped, I am one of them.

BTW-Office 13 was a Mac/Apple revision