Microsoft Bringing Office 14 to the Web!

[Rocco Augusto]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Saas&articleId=9118258&taxonomyId=172&pageNumber=2' target='_blank'>http://www.computerworld.com/action...72&pageNumber=2</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"After teasing the market multiple times, Microsoft Corp. plans to finally confirm today that it's bringing its most money-making desktop software franchise online and to smart phones. Microsoft will release lightweight versions of four components of its Microsoft Office suite for the Web and Windows Mobile smart phones, said Chris Capossela, senior vice president of Microsoft's business division, in an interview on Monday."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/zt/auto/1225316325.usr8.jpg" /></p><p>I was incredibly excited by this news until I stopped and started wondering - Is Microsoft going to build this to be compatible with all smartphones or are they going to go the usual Microsoft route and only make it compatible to Microsoft's horribly deficient mobile web browser? Either way, as a Windows Mobile user, this means we should have access to basic Microsoft Office elements online. Unfortunately it could mean that once again the rest of the Internet population would have to go without. Hopefully the latter is not the case. We'll keep you updated as we hear more news on this subject!</p>

[Fritzly]

[QUOTE=Rocco Augusto;695228]<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Saas&articleId=9118258&taxonomyId=172&pageNumber=2' target='_blank'>http://www.computerworld.com/action...72&pageNumber=2</a><br /><br /></div><p><em> Is Microsoft going to build this to be compatible with all smartphones or are they going to go the usual Microsoft route and only make it compatible to Microsoft's horribly deficient mobile web browser? QUOTE]

I am afraid you missed a question, and a crucial one: is this going to work with WM6/6.1
or only with WM 7, whenever it will be available?
There are Windows 7 functionalities like the VPN sans VPN that will be only available using it in conjunction with Windows server 2008 R2 so I wonder if we will see the same pattern here.
Whatever I am eager to see what MS will bring with WM 7; I would love to get back to WM... when it will catch up.

[efjay]

Why shouldnt MS tie their online software offering to their mobile OS? Google has tied its android platform to its services just as Apple has made its mobile me service accesible only to the iphone and no other mobile platform. So MS should also leverage their other software to make their own ecosystem more compelling. Just as the competition is doing. We dont see Apple and Google worrying about whether users on other OS platforms can access their sevices, do we?

[Rocco Augusto]

Why shouldnt MS tie their online software offering to their mobile OS?

This is a bad idea to do since Microsoft customers use a wide variety of platforms/operating systems. This can be seen on the Apple OS X platform where Office for Mac is one of Microsoft's more popular software titles.

Bringing Office to the web we can only hope that Microsoft remembers this.

[efjay]

This is a bad idea to do since Microsoft customers use a wide variety of platforms/operating systems. This can be seen on the Apple OS X platform where Office for Mac is one of Microsoft's more popular software titles.

Bringing Office to the web we can only hope that Microsoft remembers this.

Same could be said for Apple and Google - you cant use a WM smartphone with mobile me, and Google's android cant be used online without a gmail address. MS will most likely allow access to Office online from Macs as well as PC's but I dont see why they should open it up to rival smartphone platforms - makes sense to use the model that has proved successful for apple and Google and create a Microsoft ecosystem that can be fully exploited by their mobile OS.

[tnels!]

Office 14???!!! Isn't 14 < 2007? Is this code that the functionality will be going backward when put in the Cloud??

[Rocco Augusto]

Same could be said for Apple and Google - you cant use a WM smartphone with mobile me, and Google's android cant be used online without a gmail address.

Yeah but thats like comparing apples to oranges. MobileMe can arguably be said to have been created for Apple and iPhone customers. Google's Android platform was built around Google's online services, so it makes sense there to have a closed eco system as well. Microsoft creates Office for everyone and if they are taking the time to make sure it is compatible with all desktop browser it just makes sense to utilize that time to make it compatible with all mobile browsers as well.

[Fritzly]

Why shouldnt MS tie their online software offering to their mobile OS?

Maybe because MS also make a MAC version of Office?
Seriously speaking Office is the cash cow for Microsoft and they should not risk to turn away people who use Symbian, or Apple or Google OSes. There are behavioural differerences between a dominant and an underdog.

[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.

What does offering a Mac version of Office have to do with this? Any PC or Mac should be able to access Office online apps but for mobiles WM should be the lead platform offering the optimum experience from a mobile device.

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?

[Craig Horlacher]

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.

I'll also recommend SoftMaker Office on the Pocket PC. If you haven't tried it, you should. It's pretty much like having the complete versions of MS Office on the pocket pc! It supports nearly all desktop office formats including OO and MS Office up to 2007. It also has PDF creation built into the apps. It now has bluetooth printing support built in as well.

I appologize if you feel this post is off topic. I just know that you can get nearly full office functionality *now* from SoftMaker and OOo just keeps getting better and it's still free!

[Fritzly]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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