Microsoft Reportedly 'Actively Working' on Office for iPad and Mac

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Microsoft Reportedly 'Actively Working' on Office for iPad and Mac App Store

The Daily reports that Microsoft is "actively working" on bringing its Microsoft Office suite to the iPad, looking to take on Apple's iWork applications for the popular tablet device. The report also says that Microsoft is working on a updated Office for Mac suite, with the new version said to be targeted for a Mac App Store release sometime next year.

According to sources, the tech giant is actively working on adapting its popular software suite for Apple?s tablet. With the iPad making up over 80 percent of the tablet market and millions of people worldwide using Office, that could mean big bucks for the tech giant based in Redmond, Wash.

In addition to an iPad-ready version, a new edition of Office is expected for OS X Lion sometime next year. The current version of the desktop package, Office 2011, officially supports iOS versions up to Snow Leopard. A Lion version, likely available via the Mac App Store, is widely expected.

Microsoft acknowledged just after the iPad's introduction in early 2010 that the company was "looking at" the possibility of bringing Office to the iPad, but by the time the device actually launched a few months later the company was saying that it had "no current plans" for such an offering.

Source: Mac Rumors

[Rudy]

Don't worry, I'm sure it will be released in 2014

[Brandon H Supervisor]

i still have no idea what problems people are having with Office 2011 in Lion, because I've had 0 problems with it

[AltecXP]

MS's mac Office team is also much smaller than the Windows Office team if I remember. I believe that most of what they do is try and take what the WinOff team dictates as an office standard and tries to implement it in a OS X-like way.

Which IMO they do a good job of. I LOVE the current Mac Office.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

MS's mac Office team is also much smaller than the Windows Office team if I remember. I believe that most of what they do is try and take what the WinOff team dictates as an office standard and tries to implement it in a OS X-like way.

Which IMO they do a good job of. I LOVE the current Mac Office.

same here, I love office 2011

I just wish more of the office apps were available besides just the main 3 (not including outlook)

it would be nice to have project or visio or even access on the mac

[Shadrack]

The current version of the desktop package, Office 2011, officially supports iOS versions up to Snow Leopard.

When does iOS Snow Leopard come out? I want my Office 2011 support for iOS damn it!!

lol..anyway.. The iPhone version of OneNote is decent. I would love to have Office for my iPad that integrates with SkyDrive.

I haven't come across any problems running Office 2011 in Lion. Just the new Lion auto-saving features and full screen features aren't there...

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

Im interested in trying what they come up with, but ill prolly endnup using it as much as Office on my desktop, or other creation types on laptop/ipad. Wich is rarely, only thing i regularly use is Outlook

[Xtreme $niper]

This just means that when it is launched for the Mac App Store, they'll be forced to sell it as separate apps like Apple has done with their own line of programs. So I guess people can buy Word and Outlook if that's the only thing they'll use.

Could be good, could be bad. Depends on their pricing structure I guess.

[.Neo]

Okay. Does that mean they'll finally will start using a truly native interface?

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Okay. Does that mean they'll finally will start using a truly native interface?

This is Microsoft we're talking about, remember?

[thealexweb]

Cool :)

[DeadEndAccount]

If they're going to create a version for iOS then it seems to me at the very least that Microsoft is in the process of fully re-writing their user interface using Cocoa and moving their code base to something more modern - if so it will address many of the complaints that exist out there already. Outlook for all its flaws gorgeous and I'd love to see similar work being done when it comes to making Word, Excel and PowerPoint updated using Cocoa.

IIRC wasn't the MacBU rolled into the Office division? I would have thought something like that would mean a lot more code being shared.

[PyX]

Okay. Does that mean they'll finally will start using a truly native interface?

Like iWork and its claustrophobic interface also known as the inspector, the toolbar, the sub-toolbar, the sidebar, the menus and, in the case of Pages, the drawers ? God, I hope not !

So while Microsoft is actively working on the next Office suite for both iOS and OS X, what has Apple been doing since the last 3 years ? The next release will be very important for both Apple and Microsoft, especially because they have chances to be released the same year for once.

It will be an even more important release for Apple, considering this has always been the suite that can make the most businesses switch from PC to Mac, yet they never really understood that so far. If Office didn?t exist, most companies would never do this switch, and some still don?t because Office is incomplete on the Mac vs on the PC. :/