With Microsoft Office on Android, Has Linus Torvalds Won? 365
sfcrazy writes "The father of Linux, Linus Torvalds, once said, 'If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won.' Microsoft yesterday released one of its cash cows, Microsoft Office, for Android. Since Microsoft has a very vague idea of what users want and is suffering from lock-in, the app is just an Android front end of Office 365 and is accessible only by the paid users. There are already quite a lot of office suites available on Android including Office Pro, QuickOffice and KingSoft, so Microsoft will have to struggle there. Still it's a Microsoft core application coming to Linux. So, it looks like Linus has won."
I don't know, has he? (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's not really Linux (Score:0, Informative)
Android is collecting all your data, that's why it's free. Linux is truly free, unlike Android.
Excuse me, you're late to the party (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft has already released several applications for Android, as is evidenced here https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Microsoft+Corporation [google.com]. I still cannot find any thing for Microsoft Office, except maybe Onenote.
MSN Messenger for Android was released in 2012.
Re:I don't know, has he? (Score:4, Informative)
Genius... (Score:5, Informative)
Guess what?
Microsoft didn't release Office for Android.
They released Office Mobile for Office 365.
What you imply is that they released an office suite for Android, when in fact, they merely released an Android client for Office 365 users.
As much as you might care to think one is pretty much the same as the other, you would be wrong. This app is not for editing office documents on your mobile device. It is for Office 365 users to view items synced to their cloud....nothing more. It cannot even access items on your mobile device...
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
It's just like MacOS isn't Unix. It's more like System 6 with a Unix kernel underneath. Even if you think it's all only OpenStep now, it's still Openstep, not Unix.
Apple used to ship a UNIX distribution that was like that called A/UX. System 6 UI, UNIX underneath.
MS knows exactly what THEIR core customers want (Score:4, Informative)
"Since Microsoft has a very vague idea of what users want" ... BS
Do you own a truck? If you don't and don't want one you wouldn't tell Ford and Ram(Dodge) what they should put in their trucks.
Excel is the Grep\AWK\Sed of the enterprise\business world. Not all of it, but a large percentage. The fact of the matter is there is a whole lot in your life that was built with the assistance of Word, Excel, and hell even PowerPoint. You think the construction company that built the building your in uses VIM to manage there shit.
Slashdot in general does not get this. I'm sure there are plenty of desktop support guys on here who do. Google docs is great an I use them all the time, but it's a tinker toy to some of the more advanced features in Excel that most people haven't even heard of.
Throw together a pivot table with a slicer and then see me in the morning. Take a look at stock symbol DATA for tableu...there is a world outside of compilers, web servers, and VIM people.
You can't tell me you haven't heard a iPad guy tell you he wishes he had Excel on there.
MS has done okay with the XBox. I think the phone and tablet is a catch 22 for them. If they don't do it people will wonder why. If they do people will wonder why.
Just extending vendor lock-in to a new platform (Score:4, Informative)
.
You pay a $10 a month fee to have Microsoft control your access to your own documents. While I have not used it, I can not imagine being able to do anything on a mobile phone via the web that would be worth the price. And don't even think of trying to install it on a tablet, you are not allowed. Microsoft probably thinks that a person with a tablet might actually expect to be able to do something with it, and wanting money for nothing they thought it easier to just deny tablets. Like that's really going to make me want to buy one of their tablets. Dream On!
Requirements:
* A qualifying Office 365 subscription is required to use this app. Qualifying plans include: Office 365 Home Premium, Office 365 Small Business Premium, Office 365 Midsize Business, Office 365 Enterprise E3 and E4 (Enterprise and Government), Office 365 Education A3 and A4, Office 365 ProPlus, Office 365 University, and Office 365 trial subscriptions
NOTE: If you don’t have an Office 365 subscription, you can buy Office 365 Home Premium from http://www.office.com./ [www.office.com] With Office 365 Home Premium, you also get the latest version of Office for up to 5 PCs, Macs, and Windows tablets - and an additional 20 GB of SkyDrive cloud storage and Skype world minutes***.
* Requires a phone running Android OS 4.0 or later.
* Microsoft Office 2013 on a PC is needed for features like recent documents and resume reading.
**Office 365 account and setup necessary. Data connection required. Storage limits and carrier fees apply.