Microsoft's Office software package is coming to the iPhone for the
first time Friday, offering people the ability to read and edit their
text documents, spreadsheets and slide presentations at the doctor's
office or at a soccer game.
The company isn't making an iPad version,
though, nor is it offering the app on Android devices. Microsoft Corp.
is treading a fine line as it tries to make its $100-a-year Office
subscription more compelling, without removing an advantage that tablet
computers running Microsoft's Windows system now have - the ability to
run popular Office programs such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Office Mobile for iPhone
is available free through Apple's app store, but an Office 365
subscription is required to use it. That subscription lets you use
Office on up to five Mac and Windows computers for the annual fee. A
subscription can be more expensive than buying the package outright for
just one or two computers, but the iPhone version won't be sold
separately for those who resist the recurring fee.
Microsoft has
been pushing subscriptions as a way to get customers to keep paying for a
product that has historically been sold in a single purchase. The
company touts such benefits as the ability to run the package on
multiple computers and get updates for free on a regular basis.
Microsoft said it wants to give customers yet another reason to embrace
subscriptions by offering Office on the iPhone only with a subscription.
Chris
Schneider, a marketing manager with Microsoft's Office team, would not
comment on any plans for the iPad or Android. Office is available on
those devices through a Web browser, but it's not as rich or powerful as
having stand-alone software installed directly on the device. The Web
app also requires an Internet connection, something not always available
with many tablets.
The regular version of Office works on Windows
8 tablets, and most of the features are available on a version designed
for tablets running a lightweight version of Windows called RT.
Customers needing to use Office on a larger screen than a phone might be
drawn to the Windows tablets, which have lagged behind in sales and
cachet compared with Apple's iPad and various devices running Google's
Android system.
The iPhone app will come with Word, Excel and
PowerPoint and will sync with Microsoft's SkyDrive online storage
service. Microsoft said people will be able to pick up a Word document
exactly where they left off on another computer tied to the same
account, while comments they add to a Word or Excel file will appear
when they open it up on another machine
.
Although documents will
be reformatted to fit the phone's screen, the company said the iPhone
app will preserve charts, animation, comments and other key properties.
That's not always the case with programs offered by Google and other
companies to work with Office files on mobile devices.
But Microsoft said the app won't offer the same range of features available on regular computers.
It's
meant for lightweight editing, not complex calculations or heavy
graphical work, Schneider said.
Someone about to give a speech can
review a PowerPoint presentation and fix a typo, for instance. Someone
getting a Word or Excel document as an email attachment can add comments
or make changes, then send it back, either as an email attachment or
through a sharing feature on SkyDrive.
Rather than have it do
everything, Schneider said, "we designed the Office Mobile for iPhone to
meet the scenarios that make the most sense."
The iPhone app also
won't have Outlook for email, Publisher for desktop publishing and
Access for databases. Microsoft's OneNote software for note-taking has
been available for free separately for iPhones and iPads.
People
with Office 365 subscriptions will be able to run the new app on up to
five iPhones, in addition to the five Mac or Windows computers. People
in the United States will be able to get it from Apple's app store
Friday. Availability in other countries will follow in the coming days.
Microsoft,
which is based in Redmond, Wash., already makes a version for phones
running its Windows Phone 8 operating system. An Office 365 subscription
isn't required for that, and those apps do not count toward the five
mobile devices permitted for each subscription.
No comments:
Post a Comment