News - Microsoft launches Office for iPad, allowing free file viewing

[HEXUS]

Full subscription will cost £7.99pm or £79.99 a year for Word, Excel and PowerPoint suite.

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[slipthemonkey]

I don't think I could ever be persuaded to fork out for an office suite when you can get other free alternatives. It may be a better option for businesses but for the average consumer I don't understand why you would want o pay for something you can get free elsewhere.

[Niskin]

Is this an early April fool? It must be...

[jim]

I don't think I could ever be persuaded to fork out for an office suite when you can get other free alternatives. It may be a better option for businesses but for the average consumer I don't understand why you would want o pay for something you can get free elsewhere.

You're probably right, but then businesses are the primary consumer of Office products so the average consumer doesn't really matter. There is no way on earth that my company would drop Office - it would sink us within weeks, and I'm really not joking. Even moving from 07/10/13 to 03 can cause major headaches, let alone moving to an entirely different piece of software.

Will they launch Office for iPad for staff members who are interested? I'm really not sure. I think it would be a very popular move, but they won't touch the cloud with a bargepole, and I don't know how much of a sticking point that could be.

As for me, I guess if I owned an iPad, and if I was at uni, then maybe it would be useful. I used a lot of features in Word for essay writing, like footnotes and so on, and it would be a massive pain in the neck if all the formatting got wrecked when I edited it on the tablet. But even then, I wouldn't pay £80/year for it. Maybe £10-20 up front, but no more than that. And only if I got to keep it for life.

[Denis_iii]

It should be pointed out that the subscription gives Office 2013 on 5xPC/Mac and 5xDevices. You are NOT paying £80/year for Office on iPad alone, there are also Onedrive storage increase and Skype minutes included.

[slipthemonkey]

It should be pointed out that the subscription gives Office 2013 on 5xPC/Mac and 5xDevices. You are NOT paying £80/year for Office on iPad alone, there are also Onedrive storage increase and Skype minutes included.

What if you don't want Skype minutes and OneDrive storage increase? It's still not inspiring me to want to buy it.

[bluevaping]

Great if it is a must have for what your doing. I just glad I have other alternatives so I don't have to pay Microsoft or Adobe to use productive software on subscription year after year.

[Neostar]

Meh prefer Google QuickOffice it's free

[Andrew McP]

I recently upgraded from Office 97 to Office 2003, so I may not be quite the user MS have in mind, but I'm fascinated by the fact I now have complete free viewing/editing on my Android phone, require the 365 tax for editing on iPad, and have nothing whatsoever on my Nexus7.

Intriguing. Fortunately the only thing I tend to do when mobile is scribble notes which are easily pasted from Evernote (or similar) into whatever I'm doing on my desktop machine. So I'm just a casual observer pondering from the sidelines.

[wasabi]

What if you don't want Skype minutes and OneDrive storage increase? It's still not inspiring me to want to buy it.

Not aimed at Joe home-user. It is aimed at middle manager types who insist on using a poser-pad despite the fact a laptop would suit them far better.

[Agent]

Not aimed at Joe home-user. It is aimed at middle manager types who insist on using a poser-pad despite the face a laptop would suit them far better.

Sad but true.
I've recently had someone at work not shut up about how they'll be able to get much more done now office is coming to the iPad.

To be fair, it's not like they could get much less done.

[Biscuit]

Sad but true.
I've recently had someone at work not shut up about how they'll be able to get much more done now office is coming to the iPad.

To be fair, it's not like they could get much less done.

Sounds like the boss from my old job