Is Office for iPad Too Late in the Game?
This week it was about getting work done and planning the next moves. Sometimes the moves just come to me. Will be heading to NAB from a last minute sponsor, so making plans for Vegas again.
Last night’s TWIGG brought David Esquire to the show. He’s been using Glass for photography. Luke and I try to keep the lid off this episode. But karaoke must be sung!
The Absolute LoJack Challenge is over. Congrats to Rust and Wendy as they won 1 year subscriptions to Absolute LoJack.
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Geek Smack: Office for iPad Coming, but is it Too Late to the Game?
Being a support agent to Windows 95, I would get a lot of Office 95 questions I would have to answer. I have been a big fan of Office products – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access. I was upset when FrontPage was taken off the Office list, and eventually weened myself off the program.
I remember the day that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates showed up on the same stage to talk about how Apple is working with Microsoft on the 10 year deal. When I got my first Mac, I made sure it had Office on it. Was not a big fan of the Mac Office, but it did the job and I could move things back to my PC to finish up.
Then in 2010 the direction of the computer changed. The days of the desktop were numbered for most people as the new shiny was the tablet. And not any tablet, but the iPad. To this day, it still outsells the other tablets out there.
In the meantime, alternates to Office started showing up. Google Docs came around and we saw how the cloud could really affect our lives. And Apple had their own programs – Keynote, Numbers, Pages – making sure they were on the iPad as quick as possible.
Microsoft poo-pooed the idea of the iPad as a productivity tool and ultimately were late to the game. Analysts started to say that adding Office for iPad could bring up to 4 billion in revenue. And then PC sales started to go down…
So now its 2014 and Microsoft might be seeing some real competition in alternate desktop options. Apple and iWork, Google and Drive.
Microsoft needs Office, if anything for stabilization in the game. Right now, Microsoft still holds the majority of Enterprise desktops and server. But in the next 5 years they could see a change in their enterprise market share.
Windows can’t be a dinosaur. Office certainly cannot do that either.
Hopefully, we’ll not see a “Subscription” model come out of this, but a “Freemium” model – Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are free. The rest might come at a subscription price simply because the majority of customers don’t need them.
For iPad, Office apps need to be at the same price of the Apple competitor. And Office needs to get some fun apps in there, too – matching or exceeding what Garageband and iMovie can do.
That could get them back on track in this new age of the computer…
Geek Smack! episode 294 Tech News:
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- Google Gets a Watch
- IPO
- NPR in iTunes
- HTC M8
- Disney Buys Maker Studios
- Tumblr two-factor Authentication
- Google Now in Chrome
- Feeling Prosthetic Hand
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Replica Google Glass – Better get them now. Only $59!
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Geek Smack! is a weekly video show and podcast that comes out every Tuesday evening. Your host: Jeffrey Powers – talks tech news, IT news and geek news for the week. Geek Smack! is ©2014 under a Creative Commons no-deriv license. I miss the rains down in Africa… If you would like more information about what is technology, recent news, Geekazine, and Jeffrey Powers, feel free to contact him. Jeffrey Powers does interviews, just ask!