Microsoft really building an iOS version of Office? If so, is it brilliant or suicide
by Jack Madden
"The smart play here is to make a for pay version Office 2010 for iOS and Andriod, include the Lync client with Skype video conferencing and then charge for it on a rental basis. Additionaly a second option exists put all those ioS, Windows 8 and Andriod Tablets onto Office 365 and charge users again... ;) 2012 vcould be the Office division best year yet!" - Dr. Strangelove
Rumors about a Microsoft building an Office suite for iOS have been swirling for about a month now. Regardless of whether there’s any truth in these rumors or even what that product might look like, an iOS version of “real” Microsoft Office is a huge opportunity for both for Microsoft and IT departments.
To understand why, let’s look at the current options for accessing Office docs on tablets. (For the purpose of this article, the term “tablets” means dedicated tablet devices like iPad and Android tablets. We’re not talking about the laptops-with-hinged-touchscreens that Microsoft supports today.)
•Use a web-based office product
•Deliver the “real” Windows Office suite to a tablet as a remote hosted app from a virtual desktop or terminal server session
•Install a third-party device-native office app on the tablet.
•Do nothing
•Hope that Microsoft releases a genuine version of Office for non-Windows tablets (iOS & Android)
Let’s look at the pros and cons of each of these.
Web based office suites
There are a few web-based office suites in the market now, most notably Google Docs and Microsoft’s own Office 365.
Right now Google is well ahead of Microsoft.
Accessing Google Docs from the Safari browser on an iPad leads to an iPad-specific version of the site, and creating and editing docs feels like a “native” app. (Of course Google Docs accessed from a real computer is a better document creation experience due to the keyboard and mouse, but Google Docs when accessed from a tablet is as good as any tablet app.)
Office 365, on the other hand, does not have a good experience when accessed from a tablet. There’s no mobile version of the web apps; instead users are presented with all the same pointing-device centric buttons.
Unfortunately neither of these web-based office suites works when the tablet is offline.
(While Google Docs does have some basic offline functionality, it requires the Chrome browser, so no iPad support today.)
Remote hosted copies of “real” Office running on Windows
A lot of companies “solve” the “Office apps on tablets” problem by using desktop virtualization to deliver remote Office apps to tablets via a remote display protocol connecting back to a virtual desktop or terminal server session. In fact Citrix has spent a lot of money marketing this exact solution.
The problem is that the “real” version of Microsoft Office is designed to be used on a multitasking computer with a keyboard and precision pointing device (trackpad or mouse). Tablets don’t have either of those.
The other problem is that even if you hook up a bluetooth keyboard and use the touch interface of your tablet, real Microsoft Office was built with all the bells & whistles--the million features that 95% of the world never use.
This is not needed on a tablet.
And then of course there’s the fact that this also doesn’t work offline. A big promise of tablets is that they are light and can be with you anywhere. If you’re going to go to all the trouble to have a tablet and an external keyboard and an external mouse and a table to use them on and an Internet connection--why not just buy a real laptop and run Office locally?
FULL STORY :
http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/jackmadden/archive/2012/01/03/is-microsoft-really-building-an-ios-version-of-office-if-so-is-is-brilliant-or-suicide.aspx
