Web-based Office to work on Macs, iPhone

A Microsoft blog reiterated this week that the Web-based version of Office won't be tied to either Windows or Internet Explorer.

In a blog posting on its Channel 10 site, a Microsoft blogger noted that, owing to support of Firefox and Safari, the forthcoming Office Web Applications will run on Linux and the iPhone.

The blogger, Microsoft's Sarah Perez, also noted that Microsoft won't be mandating use of Silverlight, its rival to Adobe's Flash.

"Silverlight is not required," Perez said in the Q-and-A posting. "Using Silverlight will enhance the user experience, resulting in sharper images and improved rendering. Also, the Office Live Workspace has integrated Silverlight technology into the multi-file upload function for a better experience."

Microsoft has said a technical preview of the Web-based Office apps will come later this year. Microsoft hasn't explicitly said there will be a free version, though executives have said the apps will be part of Office Live, which comes in both free and subscription flavors. Perez takes that to mean--as do I--that there will be both free and paid options.

On the corporate side, Microsoft has said the Office Web Applications will be tied to SharePoint.

The forthcoming Web-based version of Microsoft Word, like online versions of Excel and PowerPoint, won't be limited to the PC, Microsoft says.

(Credit: Microsoft)

[Galaxy5]

Well, that's a breath of fresh air. Instead of the horrific stuff the Mac Business Unit has been foisting on Mac users for years, we might actually be able to achieve parity with the most mediocre overall integrated suite for Windows.

Seriously - for a company with Microsoft's resources, there's no excuse for the steaming pile that is called Office 2008 for the Mac. If the web version actually works, I'll use it - even if it comes with the customer-insulting "ribbon" that seems to pass for innovation these days at Microsoft.

Apple managed to build a competent, stable, and feature-forward office suite for the Mac in a couple of years. What's Microsoft's problem?

[Vegaman_Dan]

It's simple economics. There aren't enough Mac users at this time to really warrant putting that many resources into producing what you are asking for. But you don't have to worry about it. There are pleny of alternatives avaialble from OpenOffice and other resources. I don't really includ Apple's offering as I haven't found anyone who has used it to have anything very positive to say about it yet.

[kelmon]

I think describing Office:mac as a "steaming pile" does the group a disservice. I, for one, really appreciate the difficult that they do for the Mac platform in a company that no doubt wants them to fail, particularly given the comments of Brad Brooks a few weeks ago. There is, in my experience, very little wrong with Office:mac and I even favor it over Office for Windows on occasion since there things that it does that the Windows version does not (e.g. being able to save a chart in Excel as a picture file). While I can appreciate that it does lack in areas, and that those areas may be important to you, I cannot bring myself to complain about the applications themselves.

@Vegaman_Dan

The problem is that Office for Windows is definitely better than any of the competition so anything else is a compromise solution.

As for Apple's own offerings, Keynote is still the best presentation software for any platform, although PowerPoint is catching up these days. Pages is pretty good as a page layout application be lags as a full word processor behind Word while Numbers is very much a version 1 release, which is about as polite as I can be. I'm pretty sure that MacWorld in January will see a new release and it will be interesting to see what Apple has achieved, if anything, in the past 18-months.

[ca5ter]

Vegaman_Dan

"There aren't enough Mac users at this time to really warrant putting that many resources into producing what you are asking for."

Perhaps you should take another look at Adobe's suite of applications. The interface, tool sets and features are 100% the same on both Mac and Windows. It isn't economics, it is lazy programming.

[AppleSuxLeo]

It`s funny that Mac users have to run PC software to get any productivity. And that their notebooks don`t have such basic features such as card readers , express card slots , built in EVDO/HSDPA.
They have to run Windows to have a real life instead of an iLife.

[Maccess]

Hardware wise, Macs are PCs and will take an install of Windows if you like it so much, so I'm not really sure where you're coming from.

[Perry_Clease]

"so I'm not really sure where you're coming from."

He is a well known incorrigible troll.

[Alex Alexzander]

His point was that Macs don't have "card readers , express card slots , built in EVDO/HSDPA".

How does running Windows on a Mac challenge what he said?

Alex

[Jeremy Chappell]

Well actually experience shows this isn't true. Most new Mac users put Windows on their Mac then find they use it less and less until one day the realise they NEVER use it anymore. I guess it's a security blanket.

A lot of Mac users run Microsoft's "Office for Mac", which they complain about (for a number of reasons actually, not all of them totally valid).

Other options for "productivity" on the Mac are Sun's OpenOffice.org 3. That's now "native" on the Mac, it no longer needs an X Windows (a Unix thing, comes shipped with the Mac) runs just like other Mac applications. Apple also have iWork '08, this is somewhat "left field" as it doesn't feel much like Microsoft's offering at all, but can read and write Microsoft Office file formats (including the new XML ones). A lot of users don't take it seriously, early versions didn't have a spreadsheet (it now does), it's inexpensive (compared to Microsoft's Office), it just doesn't look like Microsoft's offering. It also doesn't include many of the parts that Office does, there is nothing like Outlook in the suite, instead Apple intend users to stick to the offerings in Mac OS X. On the Mac Outlook's functionality is split amongst several programs: "Address Book", "iCal", and "Mail". These programs talk to each other to provide an integrated solution. The "Address Book" is actually just a front-end of a system-wide database of contact information, developers are encouraged to use this in their applications (Bento already does) and Apple include two clients on the Mac, the "Address Book" application itself and a widget version for looking up contacts quickly. The iChat (instant messenger) application is also tightly integrated with both Mail and the "Address Book database". For example if you get an email from someone mail can show their IM status next to the message (give you the option of send an IM rather than reply to the email). These applications in Mac OS X can also integrate with Microsoft's Exchange Server, and Apple provide their own backends in Mac OS X Server.

Don't get the idea that because Macs can integrate well in Windows networks, both consuming Microsoft services and making their own services available to Microsoft clients that Mac user NEED Microsoft, unless they have to integrate with PC users running Microsoft's tools. It is true that the vast majority of Mac users run Microsoft Office for Mac, this is largely for historic reasons.

[kelmon]

I have an ExpressCard/34 slot in my MacBook Pro at the moment. What's the problem?

It should also be noted that "productivity" depends on your job and the environment that you work in. Frankly, I can be quite productive without Windows at all with Office:mac so I fail so see what the grounding for the comment is. When I want productivity with my photography then Windows isn't a suitable option since I rely on Apple's Aperture and the color management in OS X, which Windows still hasn't got right (fingers crossed that Microsoft finally nails that feature in Windows 7).

But, hey, you're not really looking for rational comments, are you?

[Maccess]

Yeah, right. It won't be tied to any other product. Yeah, right. ...but you'll get a nag every thirty secons about "enhancing" your user experience by installing other stuff you don't really need or want. Not, thanks. I 'd rather wait for OpenOffice.org for iPhone with a feature for storing and retrieving files online.

[kojacked]

You forgot to add "vendor lock-in" to your post. No hate mongering troll should ever forget to add that to a response to Microsoft's attempt to be cross-platform. God forbid if anyone ever got the idea that Microsoft isn't forcing anyone to use their browser for this.

[Penguinisto]

@kojacked:

What format will these documents be in again?

[kojacked]

@Peng:

ODF of course! I guess you spend too much time trolling than reading the articles:
http://news.cnet.com/Microsofts-backward-route-to-ODF-support/2100-7344_3-6240160.html?tag=mncol

[MTGrizzly]

"I don't really includ Apple's offering as I haven't found anyone who has used it to have anything very positive to say about it yet."

Now you have.

I use iWork for everything from correspondence to writing non-fiction and fiction. Pages is a much simpler and easier way to get work done than MS Office ever was.

With Pages I create documents. With MS Office, I was just typing...

iWork is great.

[kelmon]

The ONLY thing that REALLY bugs me about Pages is that it is impossible to create a document with both portrait and landscape oriented pages. The workaround is to create your content for the other orientation and rotate it 90-degrees, which doesn't exactly make for easy reading.

Aside from this Pages is generally fine and it certainly does produce good looking documents quickly. It just needs to be a better featured word processor and to be much more compatible with the likes of MS Word.

[mayadanteamihan]

I use iWork08 to open Word, Excel and PowerPoint files all the time, and export files to these too. No big hassle. In fact, I've found Mac applications to be so all-encompassing that I haven't bought Windows or Office 2008 for Mac at all. Nor do I find any use for the OpenOffice I downloaded in case of an emergency.

[kelmon]

In my experience, iWork applications tend to mash documents created in MS Office applications. Fonts are normally the issue but formating sometimes throws it as well, such as tables with images in the cells. The compatibility area is one aspect that really needs addressing.

[Jimmygotajobatgoogle]

Well I seriously find what some people are booing Mac users about Office is irrelevant and pathetic at times.

Here is some reasons why Mac users need to use Office.
1. Office rules the word document world. 90% of the document you receive from your friends will be in Word.
2. Office has proprietary format that only MS Office can open it and this has been set as default and most people won't bother to change it so that if you use other software beside Word to open it, chances are that some things will be rendered wrong is very great.

Well MS only rules the Mac department in Word and Excel but not in PowerPoint, because Mac users got this awesome presentation software called Keynote which is much much more easier to use and much more powerful then PowerPoint.

Besides, if the files you received is not Office proprietary or the user who gave you the document don't use any Word specific features then you can use OpenOffice or use Pages (which I don't like, I prefer Word)

So yeah, I use Word and Excel for documents and I use Keynote for Presentation.

Also, its good that MS is going to allow web-office to work on Mac and iPhone. How about Linux? ( I don't use Linux just wonder if its going to be able to work on Linux, since its a web-app which is suppose to be able to run on any OS, it just depends on the browser)

Q: Will the Microsoft Office Web Applications be free?

A: We don't know for sure yet, but Microsoft will deliver Office Web applications to consumers through Office Live, which is a consumer service with both ad-funded and subscription offerings. That seems to imply a free (ad-supported) and paid (subscription) offering will be available.

[canberra_photographer]

Microsoft is increasingly becoming open to supporting other operating systems. Me thinks the Balm knows Windows is a dying OS and they may as well work to keep people with their other products. Smart move I say.

[kelmon]

I think there is going to come a point when your statement is true but it's a while away yet. Vista has generally been avoided not because it is bad but mostly because it doesn't offer much benefit to justify a business migrating to it. For each release Microsoft (and any other OS company) needs to be able to offer compelling features that justify the cost that they want to charge. It stands to reason that it is becoming more difficult to add those compelling features and so, theoretically, the price ought to come down. If the money isn't coming in like it used to then Microsoft needs to find new sources of income, such as they have done with their video games group. Providing cross-platform "best of breed" software could well be another income booster, but I don't think they are prepared to move away from Windows yet.

[kcwookie]

I work is a mainly PC shop. One of our staff sent out a Word file in the docx format. Over half the staff couldn't read it, but being a Mac user, I had no trouble. It opened in TextEdit and in NeoOffice. Pages 08 also opened it, but had a small problem with paragraph borders.

I used to have Windows on my computer, but haven't gotten around to putting it back on my new one. I don't miss it and it did little to improve my productivity.

[kelmon]

Windows users can also read documents in the new XML formats but they do need to install the updates to their version of Office to do so. However, I do agree with your point - these new document formats are a pain in the backside precisely because most people who will be trying to read them probably don't have the software to do so. Given this I send out all my documents in the old 97-2003 formats, just to avoid the hassle. I honestly don't know when I won't need to bother doing this but I imagine that it's going to be a few years yet.

[ca5ter]

"There aren't enough Mac users at this time to really warrant putting that many resources into producing what you are asking for."

Perhaps you should take another look at Adobe's suite of applications. The interface, tool sets and features are 100% the same on both Mac and Windows. It isn't economics, it is lazy programming.

[afriendof77]

No its based on the .NET framework that doesn't run under MacOS X, the libraries are the key here smart guy. I guess just because they didn't port the whole framework to Mac they are being lazy.

[ca5ter]

Yes, they are being lazy. If they did programming part-time, I would cut them some slack, however, they are a software company and the worlds largest to boot. They should be developing apps for at least the two largest platforms, even game developers can achieve that scale of programming.

And again I point to a large developer of applications, Adobe, and their ability to port over an entire suite of applications to multiple platforms with no difference in features and backwards compatible.

Furthermore, if you say there are not enough Mac customers to warrant developing a Mac version, maybe you should double check you numbers. A 8% market share is worthy of developing for, which is larger than other markets Microsoft continues to chase (Zune, Mobile, Tablet, Expressions). Source: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8

[Mark_Anderson]

An 8% US market share isn't worth it when the global market share isn't even 5% yet.

[dk jones]

i got MS Office 2004 several years ago to open Word documents that were sent to me. i got Apple's iWork in 2006 & started opening all Word docs sent to me w/ Pages & i can export to Word if i need to, but mostly i send PDFs from Pages(no need for Acrobat either). i use Pages for all my docs--publishing my church's weekly bulletin & creating business cards, flyers & posters(i think the included templates are great), as well as i my own personal & professional creative work. a good bud uses Numbers to track her home-based business, Pages for all her writing as well as Mail & iCal, while another uses the entire suite in her Windows-based work environment as well as her home finances & writing. i know of others, who use some or all of Apple's productivity software, either those included in Mac OS or the iWork suite.

i'm meeting & knowing more & more people who are choosing Mac & so are choosing Apple's software for fun, entertainment, creativity & productivity. w/ the apps included in Mac OS X--iCal, Address Book, Mail when coupled w/ iWork(only $79.00, btw--way cheaper than MS Office) Mac users have a fairly complete suite of productivity tools & the integration between them as well as w/ the iLife suite has gotten better w/ the probability of said integration & feature-set should continue improving over time.

[mjw149]

I think more and more, businesses will let employees choose and maintain their own machines. So having a cross-platform office suite built on Sharepoint is going to become pretty attractive.

What this means for the mesh platform, though? You're putting your killer app on a regular web-based offering, so what is mesh for?

[onedrb]

Both Mac users and users of other types of non-Windows local computers can already take advantage of emerging network based services solutions that offer MS Office compatible applications such as Open Office that can be accessed by any broadband Internet enabled computing platform without concern for local host OS or applications support.

Some of them utilize proprietary compatibility, e.g. Google Apps, and others such as Open Office utilize standards-based solutions, which are more mature implementations, demonstrate higher levels of compatibility and enable the equivalent of full functionality online PCs, free in some cases, with major personal and professional productivity software apps available in conveniently delivered, "always on" Internet accessed formats.

Why wait for Microsoft to do what others are already doing quite well?