10-24-2005, 05:30 PM
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Magi
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 2,386
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Clinton Fitch on the State of Today's Microsoft Mobile Office Applications
"When Pocket PCs and Handheld PCs first hit the market in the mid to late 90s, the typical user knew and expected there to be limitations to what could be done... this was also an era in time when laptop computers were rare and extremely costly, cellular phones were still the size of bricks and the Internet was far from encompassing. Fast forward to today. I'm writing this editorial on a laptop that cost me less than $1,000... My cellular coverage with my Audiovox SMT5600 Smartphone is national and I spend less than $100 per month for it, my wife and daughter�s cell phones � combined!... Yet on my Dell x50v, I still have essentially what I had in 1998 when it comes to Office applications."
We've all griped about it at one time or another. The Microsoft Office applications on the Pocket PC are simply poor equivalents of their PC-based counterparts. Clinton suggests that instead of improving or upgrading the Office applications, Microsoft should completely strip them out and rebuild the entire suite from the ground up to make a full-powered Office suite for mobile users. It's an intriguing point, though I personally see some logistical issues involved.
First, while Clinton correctly points out that most of us possess massive external storage space to carry a true Office solution, such a solution would no longer be "out-of-the-box" as it would require the external card plus an install CD just for Office. Second, the effort involved would be nearly equivalent to the PC counterparts... the difference is that Microsoft Office for the PC comes with a major pricetag to help justify the effort. Could such an effort for Windows Mobile devices be a cost-effective solution for Microsoft? Finally, there's the question of required horsepower from today's Windows Mobile devices. Would there be enough for this kind of solution?
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for a better Microsoft Mobile Office suite, I'm just not sold on rebuilding it into a multi-hundred megabyte suite that rivals what we have on our PC (though I may have a different opinion regarding rebuilding Pocket IE). How about all you folks? Give us your thoughts.
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10-24-2005, 06:07 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 481
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I think that you mention the key problem with rebuilding the office apps for the PPC and that's its size. Just because we have affordable multi-gig storage cards does not mean we should now fill them up with office installations. Besides who wants to start carrying and swapping cards just to edit a document.
There is also a limit to what can be done on the PPC using an office suite. I could not see myself putting together a business proposal using pocket word or editing some complicated spreadsheet with pocket excel. For these I would be much better off using either a PC or laptop. My x50v (at least for me) is only supposed to be an extention of my of my desktop and let work in the field and not that it should replace my desktop which I guess a rebuild is meant to do. We have apps such as PI and AF with a bunch of great Today Plugins which take care of all my needs quite nicely.
Jeff-
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10-24-2005, 06:10 PM
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Magi
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 2,341
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Ekkie,
I agree there are some logistical problems associated with including full Office apps on a PPC. Most people don't need or want much more than what is available now, so the price in money as well as memory is quite high just to please the minority.
I've often thought that MS should develop a full featured Office suite for Mobile Devices which is sold seperately. Perhaps if it was bundled with the desktop version of Office. Add a couple of bucks to the cost and put that money into the Mobile Device sales. It could be a nice boost in revenue. Plus imagine the added exposure that Window Mobile would get if there was a picture of a mobile device on every Office box, with a slogan something like "Take your Office documents with you anywhere."
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10-24-2005, 06:36 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 601
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I'd be happy if they spent their time and energies perfecting my "round-trip" experience. I can't count the number of Word docs that I have really messed up (formatting-wise) by trying to proof on my handheld and then send back to my desktop later.
As far as power and capabilities of the apps I think TextMaker hits the mark in terms of a MS Word mobile "partner software". Anything beyond that stretches what I want to try and accomplish on my pda.
__________________
CTSLICK - ROCK ON
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10-24-2005, 06:48 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 39
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The Office apps in WM5, while still short of TextMaker/PlanMaker and the desktop suite, are much improved - including the roundtripping, new features like Charts in Excel, and a pretty powerful Powerpoint viewer.
I've seen a lot fewer issues with roundtripping too.
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10-24-2005, 07:40 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 11
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Pocket Office
Oh boy, is this one of my hot button issues.
Okay, I both understand and agree that a full-blown office app on my Pocket PC may not be practical. But here's the issue as I see it. The pocket office concept undermines the notion of a pda as an extension of my laptop/desktop. Here's why: when I move a document back and forth, ActiveSync tosses out essential data and in effect creates a new type of file, not merely a simplified version. It's another creature once you cross the laptop/pda divide. E.g., my Word documents become psw files and lose pretty much everything except basic text formatting (bold, italic, underlining). If I want to make simple textual changes to a document, I can't simply access the doc file on my pda in a simplied format and then send it back, intact, to my desktop when I'm back in the office. I have to come up with another plan, like keeping track of my modifications and cutting and pasting them into the doc file.
So maybe it's not practical to support every desktop function on the pda, but could the data somehow survive the trip intact? Surely someone is clever enough at Microsoft to do this. It's goofy to me that your pda would force you to throw out your data. Imagine if pocket contacts didn't support zip codes, & you had to re-enter them on your desktop side after every sync. It's not right people.
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10-24-2005, 08:16 PM
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Magi
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 2,341
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Re: Pocket Office
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Originally Posted by wkspear
Oh boy, is this one of my hot button issues.
Okay, I both understand and agree that a full-blown office app on my Pocket PC may not be practical. But here's the issue as I see it. The pocket office concept undermines the notion of a pda as an extension of my laptop/desktop. Here's why: when I move a document back and forth, ActiveSync tosses out essential data and in effect creates a new type of file, not merely a simplified version. It's another creature once you cross the laptop/pda divide. E.g., my Word documents become psw files and lose pretty much everything except basic text formatting (bold, italic, underlining). If I want to make simple textual changes to a document, I can't simply access the doc file on my pda in a simplied format and then send it back, intact, to my desktop when I'm back in the office. I have to come up with another plan, like keeping track of my modifications and cutting and pasting them into the doc file.
So maybe it's not practical to support every desktop function on the pda, but could the data somehow survive the trip intact? Surely someone is clever enough at Microsoft to do this. It's goofy to me that your pda would force you to throw out your data. Imagine if pocket contacts didn't support zip codes, & you had to re-enter them on your desktop side after every sync. It's not right people.
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wkspear,
Most of your concerns have been addressed in WM5.0. Roundtripping is now much better. There is no conversion to pocket formats. .psw is gone. Word documents in WM5.0 devices are now word .doc, the same as on a desktop. To my knowledge nothing is lost when moving from desktop to mobile device, and back again. Their are things that can't be viewed, or may be viewed differently on a mobile device, but no data is stripped in Word. This almost the same in Excel. Excel files stay as .xls. Viewing may change, and there are function that are not possible on a mobile device. For the most part there is no data stripped in Excel. BUT I believe there are some circumstances in Excel where data can be stripped, but you are warned before hand. Hopefully someone will verify that bit for me.
The functionality of both has been expanded on both as well. In Excel you can now do charts. Word now supports tables, and several other features.
Dave
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10-24-2005, 08:20 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 805
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Re: Pocket Office
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Originally Posted by wkspear
Oh boy, is this one of my hot button issues.
Okay, I both understand and agree that a full-blown office app on my Pocket PC may not be practical. But here's the issue as I see it. The pocket office concept undermines the notion of a pda as an extension of my laptop/desktop. Here's why: when I move a document back and forth, ActiveSync tosses out essential data and in effect creates a new type of file, not merely a simplified version. It's another creature once you cross the laptop/pda divide. E.g., my Word documents become psw files and lose pretty much everything except basic text formatting (bold, italic, underlining). If I want to make simple textual changes to a document, I can't simply access the doc file on my pda in a simplied format and then send it back, intact, to my desktop when I'm back in the office. I have to come up with another plan, like keeping track of my modifications and cutting and pasting them into the doc file.
So maybe it's not practical to support every desktop function on the pda, but could the data somehow survive the trip intact? Surely someone is clever enough at Microsoft to do this. It's goofy to me that your pda would force you to throw out your data. Imagine if pocket contacts didn't support zip codes, & you had to re-enter them on your desktop side after every sync. It's not right people.
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What I think that if the core apps cant provide the same functionality as their desktop brothers they DONT HAVE ANY RIGHT TO BLOW EM AWAY !! I mean if I receive an email from my college teacher containg a word document containg several images then the stupid(i hv to use this wrd) pocket word just wont display them. I know third party apps do rectify my problem but I want the functionality from builtin apps which are desgined by M$ itself :!:
Sunny
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10-24-2005, 08:27 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 468
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According to the office 12 team, the latest version of Word has something like 1500 functions, most of which the average user, in my opinon, will never need. So I'd be happy if, for the Mobile version, we had maybe the top 25% of the features of the full desktop version and perfect round-trip file compatibility. That would satisfy most mobile users and still let Microsoft command a price premium for the desktop version.
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10-24-2005, 08:28 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 805
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Re: Pocket Office
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Originally Posted by Paragon
Quote:
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Originally Posted by wkspear
Oh boy, is this one of my hot button issues.
Okay, I both understand and agree that a full-blown office app on my Pocket PC may not be practical. But here's the issue as I see it. The pocket office concept undermines the notion of a pda as an extension of my laptop/desktop. Here's why: when I move a document back and forth, ActiveSync tosses out essential data and in effect creates a new type of file, not merely a simplified version. It's another creature once you cross the laptop/pda divide. E.g., my Word documents become psw files and lose pretty much everything except basic text formatting (bold, italic, underlining). If I want to make simple textual changes to a document, I can't simply access the doc file on my pda in a simplied format and then send it back, intact, to my desktop when I'm back in the office. I have to come up with another plan, like keeping track of my modifications and cutting and pasting them into the doc file.
So maybe it's not practical to support every desktop function on the pda, but could the data somehow survive the trip intact? Surely someone is clever enough at Microsoft to do this. It's goofy to me that your pda would force you to throw out your data. Imagine if pocket contacts didn't support zip codes, & you had to re-enter them on your desktop side after every sync. It's not right people.
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wkspear,
Most of your concerns have been addressed in WM5.0. Roundtripping is now much better. There is no conversion to pocket formats. .psw is gone. Word documents in WM5.0 devices are now word .doc, the same as on a desktop. To my knowledge nothing is lost when moving from desktop to mobile device, and back again. Their are things that can't be viewed, or may be viewed differently on a mobile device, but no data is stripped in Word. This almost the same in Excel. Excel files stay as .xls. Viewing may change, and there are function that are not possible on a mobile device. For the most part there is no data stripped in Excel. BUT I believe there are some circumstances in Excel where data can be stripped, but you are warned before hand. Hopefully someone will verify that bit for me.
The functionality of both has been expanded on both as well. In Excel you can now do charts. Word now supports tables, and several other features.
Dave |
Ok Dave I agree that MS has provided a solution to our problems. According to me they should release a fix so that we the win mobile SE owners get the functionality we ppl deserve. At least this is what I expected when moving from win 2003 to win 2003 SE device(ipaq 2215 to xda o2 mini). I gave like $600 on it just to have lame functionality. Big NO NO !! THEY HAVE HORNSWOGGLED ME !!
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