back to article Microsoft denies report of Office coming to iPad

Microsoft has denied a report which claims to have photographic evidence that Redmond has developed a version of Office to run on the iPad. Rupert Murdoch’s online and iPad-app title The Daily has published a photograph of the software running on an iPad with a ruggedized casing, and saying that a brief hands-on session with …

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  1. All names Taken

    Silly MS!

    There goes another gazillion customers with no chance of MS Office on their nice bit of kit.

    Ah well, I suppose there is iWork?

    (Or is it iLife?)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @All names

      They got that covered already; either with 'Office 365' or their free Office webapps.

      Every Hotmail ("Windows Live") user has free access to the common web applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote) while Office 365 is said to provide more enhanced versions (I'm not talking from experience here, only what I read).

      So basically if people would want to have Office on their iPad they can using these tools.

    2. squilookle
      Windows

      It is a bit of a catch 22 for them: On the one hand, by not putting Office on the iPad they are losing out on sales, because I'm sure people would buy it and they could make a lot of money.

      On the other hand, they would be giving away the one killer feature that they can put on these Windows 8 tablets when they appear, and that would be incredibly silly. (I'm not sure if they are going to put Office on the W8 tablets, but I assume they will and I think it would be silly if they didn't.)

      1. dogged

        @squilookie

        According to Steven Sinofsky's blog, Office is baked in to Windows 8 on ARM. Which confirms your speculation. Although again, there's no Office sale there since it's a part of the OS.

    3. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Arctic fox
        Thumb Down

        Funny, I had to read what you had written a couple of times..............

        ..............because I was sure that the ribbon UI was introduced in Office 2007 and furthermore is fairly easily switched to the "classic" look by means of readily available "add-ons" (last time I looked 4 years or so ago). If you are running 2003 (as you are apparently claiming) you have the standard "look" and no ribbon anyway. If you are in fact running 2007 the problem is easy to sort as I have said. Later versions enable you to hide the ribbon in about 5 nanoseconds by a simple right-click/select option straight out of the box without having to install anything extra. In short you will have to forgive me but I detect a faint odour about your post as written.

      2. DF118
        Stop

        @AC 23:31

        *Reaches for bullshit repellent*

  2. CmdrX3
    WTF?

    ...and of course as we all know, Rupert Murdochs publications both online and in print are a wealth of truth and honesty.

  3. Mr Pogle

    What denial? Their comment (as quoted) is not a denial at all. They have merely said that the article is based on inaccurate rumours and speculation. This in no way is a statement that the article is untrue. Information that is 99% coorect is still "not accurate" and rumour/speculation is not incorrect simply because it is rumour/speculation. The author appears to have fallen for Microsoft's careful wording and presented the message they wanted presented.

  4. T J
    Thumb Up

    They should but Ballmer is a moron

    They should of course, it might even help delay their inevitable collapse, but Ballmer is an idiot (as we all know). iWork wasn't bad, I actually quite liked Pages, it didn't give me the screaming irrits that most Apple apps do with their appalling ergonomics. But lets face it, everything will be running LibreOffice soon, most probably on Android.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    People only need an Office VIEWER on tablets/phones

    Since people are starting to use iOS devices in corporate settings, they'll want the ability to read doc, xls and ppt attachments. But only a few power user types would be insane enough to use such a device to write/modify Office documents. I suspect it would be nearly impossible to condense the heavy Office UI into something suitable for a touch tablet, nevermind a phone. Perhaps Apple could find a way by cutting out 95% of features to leave behind the 5% that 95% of people would really need/use on a mobile device (much to the howls of Apple haters) but MS would be singularly unsuited for such a task.

    I don't think Apple needs MS for this, they already have iWork. Somehow I have to think out of all the people Apple has hired to work on iOS the past few years they've got some people who are doing or have already done an iWork port to iOS. Perhaps what the person quoted as seeing Office documents on iOS saw was this.

    I can't see MS porting Office to iOS since offering a cut down version for free on Windows 8 would be one of the few competitive advantages MS could offer versus iOS and Android tablets. If they did port to iOS I'm sure it'd be something capable of modifying/creating documents, which few people would ever want, and would price it on par with desktop software. This would basically limit its use to C level execs and the type of managers who seem to have at least one Office document attached to every email they send out.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well...

    It's probably a good thing - who wants their iPad crashing all the time?

  7. Select * From Handle
    Devil

    Why would Microsoft give the iPad any productive functionality?

    I have set up a few IPads for sales reps at work, iPads fail hugely when it comes to business functionality. You can get iWork which is kinda office but it takes ages to load and generally Fails at document management. The IPad does connect to exchange well though.

    Microsoft will let the iPad stay as a £600 Facebook machine that plays FGRA (flash game rehash apps) that have been around on the web for years...

  8. mark1978

    Office on iOS would make perfect sense for Microsoft. They'd get a LOT of sales from it and be able to charge pretty much whatever they like.

  9. marc 9
    FAIL

    What screenshot?

    The one I saw was the first screen - could be a fullscreen photo being displayed for all we know.

  10. bygjohn

    For most iOS users the functionality is already covered, so there's little point

    Thing is that unless you really need every bell and whistle of the full suite, or are working on very complex documents, there's little point now in having MS Office on iOS.

    Apple's ported the iWork apps, there's QuickOffice and Documents to Go, several other similar suites of varying capability, plus access to Google Docs and the web versions of MS Office.

    iOS comes with file viewers for MS Office files built-in, used by Mail and a plethora of other apps.

    With all those options, most people who want to view or edit MS Office documents on their iOS device have already found something to do it with.

  11. /tmp

    Would be rejected by Apple anyway

    An iOS version of Office would be rejected because it can interpret code (macros).

    1. LaeMing

      Re: Would be rejected by Apple anyway

      Also, it replicates functionality provided by an existing app (IWork) I assume.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Voice of Reason

    I dont mind the ribbon actually... :-)

  13. Milkfloat

    CloudOn

    CloudOn works well enough for me, so i don't see a huge need (apart from offline editing) for a paid version of Office.

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