Microsoft Office apps arrive for free on Android smartphones (finally)

Microsoft Office makes its way to Android phones after arriving first on tablets.Microsoft

Don't own an iPhone or Windows Phone, but rely on Microsoft's Office for writing, building presentations and crunching numbers? No problem.

Microsoft's venerable suite of applications, including Word, PowerPoint and Excel, is finally making its way onto smartphones powered by Google's Android mobile operating system, Microsoft said Wednesday.

Maybe best of all, the apps -- like their counterparts on Android tablets and devices running Apple's iOS operating system -- are free to download.

Microsoft first made its Office suite available for Android tablets in February and announced a preview of the smartphone versions in May. The apps look and work much like the software designed for Apple's iPads and iPhones, meaning you can edit Word documents and wirelessly run PowerPoint presentations from your phone. Unlocking more mobile features and using the software's desktop versions requires an annual subscription to Office 365. That last part is core to CEO Satya Nadella's strategy for reinvigorating Microsoft's business software.

The world's largest software maker hopes people will pay the fee for Office 365 so they can use the cloud versions of Outlook, Word and PowerPoint on their Macs or PCs. That's become especially attractive as employees shift activities between their corporate and personal devices.

"The goal of these apps is to make sure that as people think about working, creating and doing, they think of Office as the default," said Ebun Onagoruwa, a Microsoft product manager. Onagoruwa said this is the culmination of a nearly 18-month journey -- since Microsoft first offered Office for iPad -- "transforming [Office] from a software suite into a platform that would work across devices."

Nadella and his team want corporate customers to stop thinking of Office and Windows software as products they buy with onetime licenses. The company is following the lead of others in the industry, such as Adobe Systems, Oracle and Salesforce.com, which are pushing customers to pay annual subscriptions for applications, storage and other services in the cloud.

Microsoft's cloud business currently accounts for $6.3 billion a year, or about 5 percent of total revenue. Nadella hopes the business will deliver about $20 billion in sales by 2018.

Nadella in April said the mobile versions of Office for both iOS and Android have been downloaded more than 100 million times since June of 2013. To up that number, the company is partnering with more than 30 device makers, including Samsung, Dell and LG to preinstall Office and its Skype video-calling software on Android devices.

Microsoft tests 'Work Assistant' app to help with Office tasks on phones

Work Assistant shows up in the Windows Phone app store, with the publisher listed as "Internal Beta Account."Screenshot by CNET

Microsoft is internally testing a new application called Work Assistant, which might be one of the projects with which company founder Bill Gates is involved closely.

WMPU was the first to cover the new Work Assistant app. (I saw the WMPU report viaSoftpedia.)

The Work Assistant app, marked as a private internal beta, is designed to help users perform various Office-related tasks on devices running the Windows Phone operating system for smartphones.

One of my contacts confirmed that the Work Assistant application is being developed by Microsoft's Digital Life + Work group, which is part of the Applications and Services Group (ASG) run by Qi Lu. Julie Larson-Green, chief experience officer of ASG, is believed to be spearheading the Work Assistant effort, and Gates has been involved, my source said.

Last week, during a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session, Gates said he was helping Microsoft work on a new Personal Agent project. While not offering many details, Gates said:

"One project I am working on with Microsoft is the Personal Agent, which will remember everything and help you go back and find things and help you pick what things to pay attention to. The idea that you have to find applications and pick them and they each are trying to tell you what is new is just not the efficient model -- the agent will help solve this. It will work across all your devices."

It's not clear what the Work Assistant's connection is to Microsoft's other "assistant": Cortana. During Microsoft'sWindows 10 event in Redmond, Wash., in late January, officials showed off the ability for Cortana to do things such as fetch a PowerPoint deck from a user's own OneDrive storage system, simply by having a user ask (by voice) for slides for a particular meeting.The Work Assistant beta is 2MB in size, and was last updated December 2, 2014, according to the Windows Phone Store page about the app. It works on devices that run Windows Phone version 8.1 and requires information on users' appointments, contacts, Internet connection and microphone.

Cortana is integrated into Windows Phone 8.1 and will be integrated into Windows 10 and Windows 10 mobile for Windows phones and smaller tablets. Larson-Green also has said that Cortana will be coming to iOS and Android in some way, though she didn't provide a time frame.

Microsoft has said the name "Windows Phone" is going away with the launch of Windows 10.

Microsoft opens up Office apps for Android tablets

Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET

Microsoft on Tuesday started offering a preview of its Office apps for Android tablet users, no invite required.

The apps include preview versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint designed specifically for Android tablets. In a blog posted Tuesday, Microsoft's Office 365 team spelled out the requirements to install and run the apps, notably an ARM-based Android tablet with KitKat or Lollipop and a screen size anywhere between 7 inches and 10.1 inches.

Microsoft has made a concerted effort lately to expand the scope of its Office apps to Android and iOS users to gain more market share for its popular suite. That's a decided contrast from the past when the company focused more on the Windows and Windows Phone versions of Office, and support for iOS and Android was an afterthought.

Microsoft introduced an Office Mobile app for Android in 2013, but only for smartphones and only for Office 365 subscribers. Also unveiled in 2013, the iOS version required an Office 365 subscription as well. In November, Microsoft opened the doors so that you could create and perform basic editing tasks on the new separate apps for Word, Excel and PowerPoint for free. And in a savvy "freemium" approach, the company still required an Office 365 subscription for you to perform more advanced editing chores.

As expected, the apps are freemium versions, meaning you can create documents and perform basic editing. But you'll need that Office 365 subscription to do more.At the same time, the software giant launched a preview of its new Office for Android tablets. But the preview required you to sign up to receive a special invitation to try it out. Now Android tablet users can simply download the previews of Word, Exceland PowerPoint from Google Play.

The versions available are still previews, meaning unfinished products that Microsoft wants Android users to check out and offer their feedback. In its blog, the Office 365 team said that "we want more feedback from more users to ensure that Office apps work well on a range of different Android tablets before launching the official apps." You can share your feedback in the Google+ community for the Microsoft Office for Android Tablets Preview.

The finished version of Office for Android tablets will be available in the first half of 2015.

Microsoft makes editing documents free on Office for iPhone, Android

Microsoft finally unveiled its suite of Office apps for iPad on Thursday, but the company also made an important change to its apps for iPhone and Android mobile devices.

With the latest update of Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone and Android, editing Office files is now free for 'home use'. Earlier, users could only view Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files on their mobile devices, but editing them required a paid Microsoft Office 365 subscription.

It's worth pointing out that Microsoft rivals Google and Apple both offer their respective office suite for free. While Google's Quickoffice app is available for free for Android and iOS devices, Apple's iWork suite of apps is free with any iOS or Mac device purchased since September last year. Google and Apple also have free Web-based suite of productivity apps.

Though Microsoft says editing of documents via Office Mobile for iPhone and Android is free only for 'home use' and still expects enterprise users to purchase a subscription for Office 365, in the real world the company has no checks over where the app is being downloaded and used, so all users can benefit from this move.

Though Microsoft has been dismissive of its rivals in the past, a new chief at the helm after Steve Ballmer's departure seems to have prompted a change in the company's approach.

New Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella - in his first press briefing since landing the top job - laid out a vision of making the company the master of programs and services offered in the cloud for whatever gadgets people prefer.

"Today is the first step on a journey to make this a great innovation vector for all of Microsoft," Nadella said.

"We are committed to making our applications run cross-platform."

Nadella said he wants to provide full-feature versions of its widely used programs available for all types of devices as one aspect of Microsoft's overall strategy under his watch.

With Office for iPad, Microsoft pushing subscription-first future

Microsoft Word for iPad.Microsoft

It's been a long battle, but Microsoft seems to have conceded the fight to keep Apple's hands off proceeds from its mobile software.

Today marks the announcement of Office for iPad, Microsoft's core productivity suite that, slightly different than on iPhone, exists on tablets as standalone "freemium" apps. In doing so, Microsoft has pulled the most asked-for platform into its Office 365 umbrella, tying its effectiveness to that $99 annual subscription service, but choosing not to lock out Apple from the 30 percent cut as it has attempted to in years past.

"Microsoft is offering a $99.99 one-year subscription to Office 365 through in-app purchase. We are taking our standard 30 percent cut," an Apple spokesperson confirmed to CNET. The news was originallyreported by Recode's Ina Fried.

Microsoft debuts Office for iPad

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• ZDNet: Microsoft Office for iPad sets the gold standard for tablet productivity
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Office 365 can still of course be purchased on the Web, bypassing Apple and thus keeping it from collecting the 30 percent App Store cut. 

However, the bigger picture here is not that Microsoft has given in to the App Store ecosystem's most-avoided stipulation, but that the company has finally looped the powerful platform pull of the iPad into its most aggressive software strategy shift in years.

Buying standalone Office products for iOS is impossible, as it was on the iPhone. Access to that software on Apple's tablets now represents yet another reason why Office 365 should be the only cost-effective way to access Microsoft software.

"The 30 percent cut is the least of it, although significant. The issue is how to get users that pay for their product every two years, three years, to pay every year," said Michael Silver, an analyst at research firm Gartner.

"This is definitely Microsoft's future. If they don't get folks to subscription, it's a bigger issue," he added.

Long live Office 365

Normally, Apple's 30 percent take across the board for any purchase in the App Store -- for the app itself and any in-app items -- would create the most irritating conundrum for companies selling expensive software. That means Microsoft.

And that's been a core issue for the company on iOS in the past. Dialing back to the days before Office 365 became the de facto purchase option for Office -- the shift occurring primarily with the release ofOffice 2013 -- SkyDrive was the battleground over which Microsoft quarreled with Apple about subscriptions and in-app purchases.

Starting in December of 2012, Apple blocked an update for the SkyDrive iOS app over a dispute with Microsoft on the subscription storage plans it was trying to sell via the app. Not until many months later didMicrosoft concede to pushing SkyDrive purchases to the Web.

A CLOSER LOOK AT MICROSOFT'S OFFICE SUITE FOR THE IPAD (PICTURES)SEE FULL GALLERY

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Microsoft has neatly sorted out all the trouble as it expanded on iOS, using Office for iPhone as a testing ground. The log-in interface across the board is now necessarily native by Apple requirements, but no longer can Microsoft attempt to either set up Web-based purchases or link out from its iOS apps to facilitate those.

Instead, every Office app at long last offers an in-app purchase line item -- Office 365 Home -- for $99.99, 30 percent of that going to Apple.

The in-app purchase Microsoft included for Office apps on iPad.Screenshot by Nick Statt/CNET

There were other changes to iron this out across platforms. A "Buy Now" option on Office for iPhone was, even prior to today, already rendered useless by that disagreement and, thanks to an update that was pushed out following the iPad announcement this morning, no longer appears to exist. In its place, as on iPad, is an option that requires a Microsoft account sign-in to access a read-only mode in the absence of a 365 subscription.

It's the same limited functionality that's forced upon the desktop version of Office software if your 365 subscription expires.

The message is clear: you'd be an idiot to not use Office 365 and keep paying for it. Purchasing standalone Word software costs $110, a single-install Office package $140. None of your workflow on that software can be transferred to any other device with 365.

With standalone software installs now overtly expensive, Microsoft makes it painfully clear that Office 365 is the way to go.

That's because there's is no standalone full product version of Office software available for iOS. You must use 365, for $99 per year, which nets you five desktop installs and five mobile device installs. Before 2013, Office packages included more than one install. No longer is that case.

Microsoft is not likely to change this strategy up any time soon. "Even if they offered this [Office apps] through the App Store, they wouldn't be able to charge $10, $20 like all the other vendors," Silver said, noting that the feature set of Office is too large to justify a competitive mobile app price similar to that of Pages. "If they sold it through the App Store, it would definitely eat into their traditional Office sales."

All of this amounts to a very deliberate shift Microsoft has been planning for years, even if today's long-rumored announcement illustrates a "late to the party" mentality. "Anytime you're dealing with a billion-dollar product, its certainly fraught with uncertainty over how you're going to price it," Silver said.

With Microsoft, price tags are no more. Office for iPad is, above all else, just one more way to keep users singing up for a subscription.

Pages steals a march over Microsoft Word

The New York Times

My mother is not anti-Apple. She owns a Mac and an older iPad but has always been perfectly satisfied with her trusty copy of Microsoft Word. “That’s what everyone uses,” she says. She may want to think about switching.

The new version of Apple’s Pages word-processing software - part of a trio of applications the company calls iWork that includes a spreadsheet program and a presentation manager - seems tailor-made for someone like her: It removes the pain of learning a new software and is easy to use and share. It should finally put an end to her complaints about friends who are unable to open the documents she sends them.

There are plenty of people who will find that Pages does not meet their needs (more on that later). But the company, based in Cupertino, California, has rethought its approach to the most boring of computer applications - the word processor - with some impressive results. It particularly shines in three areas: appearance, compatibility and sharing.

To appreciate the improvements, it might be helpful to offer a comparison between Pages and Word.

Round 1: Appearance

Ever since text-based programs like Word Perfect gave way to the point-and-click variety, companies have crammed more and more buttons into their programs. The latest version of Word has a bevy of tiny icons for every function imaginable.

Pages takes a different approach, with just a handful of icons across the top and a contextual panel that slides out from the right. Editing text? Out pops the buttons for bold, font size and justification. Inserting a table? The panel switches to let you modify the rows and columns. Add a picture and you automatically get options for borders and shadows.

I compared Pages with a version of Office 365 on a Surface Pro tablet. Microsoft groups its icons in different tabs along the top, but they don’t automatically appear when you need them as they do in Pages. And each tab has too many buttons, most of which are not intuitive. Longtime power users will figure it out, but I suspect that Mom would be happier with the simpler interface.

The decision for appearance: Apple.

Round 2: Compatibility

The previous versions of Pages had a serious problem: Documents created on Pages for the Mac didn’t open easily on Pages for the iPad. Even worse, the two didn’t share anywhere near the same capabilities; they supported different headers, graphics, tables of contents and charts. A document created on the Mac looked different on the iPad, which also supported fewer fonts.

But the new version of Pages on a Mac is identical to Pages for the iPad or the iPhone. And the company now has a version of Pages that runs amazingly well in any modern Web browser, even on a Windows PC.

I opened it on the Surface Pro in Internet Explorer. Mom can start a letter on her Mac, edit it on her iPad and send it to Dad’s Windows XP PC for some final edits. (Dad is afraid of upgrading his system, but that’s a topic for another column.)
In fairness, Microsoft is no slouch in this area.

The company has versions of Word for the Mac and the PC, although they look different. And a web-based version of Word, introduced recently as part of the company’s Office 365 software, is a good, pared-down likeness of the desktop counterparts. 

The company supports minimal editing of documents on iPhone or Android phones, but it does not have a full version of Word for iPads or Android devices. For now, the company reserves that for Microsoft’s own tablets, although it has announced that an iPad version is coming.

The decision for compatibility: Tie.

Round 3: Sharing

OK, let’s say it. The reason most people don’t switch from Word is that everyone else they know uses it. Sending a Pages document to a friend who doesn’t have the program installed has been an exercise in futility and frustration that always leads to the same sentence: “I can’t open that document you sent me.”

The new version of Pages introduces an all-new sharing option, powered by the company’s iCloud service, that works remarkably well. Type in a person’s email address, click send and that person receives a link to your document. When they click the link, the document opens in a Web browser that looks like a fully functioning Pages application.

They don’t have to have Pages installed or have an iCloud account. It even makes Mac-PC sharing easy. The new version runs just fine in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome or Safari on a Windows PC.

Apple has also copied a crucial feature from its competitors, adding real-time document editing to Pages. With a shared document open in the browser-based Pages, multiple people can make changes and collaborate at the same time. The edits appear magically in real time. Word and Google have had this feature for a while, and now Pages catches up in a way that is simpler and somewhat easier to understand.

The decision for sharing: Apple.

The new version of iWork, which includes Pages, Numbers and Keynote, is free for anyone who buys a new Mac, iPad or iPhone. Others can buy the three programs for $9.95 (Rs 613) each on the iPad and $19.95 (Rs 1,229) each on the Mac. The updated features for Pages - the new appearance, sharing and compatibility - also apply to Numbers and Keynote. That makes them attractive options, especially considering that a subscription to Microsoft’s Office 365 Home Premium costs $99.99 (Rs 6,161) a year, and you have to pay every year.

But the Apple programs are not for everyone.

Pages seems like a bad choice for anyone who works in an office environment dominated by colleagues with Microsoft Word on their computers. Even though co-workers could open the Pages documents, they most likely won’t want to, just because it’s not their default. And going back and forth between formats is still a pain in the neck.

The new version of Pages may also frustrate people with highly specific needs. In trying to make the different versions of Pages identical, the company decided to remove many editing and formatting tools that had been in its previous Mac software.

There is no way to select non-contiguous text, which makes bulk formatting harder. Vertical rulers are no longer there to help place photos and charts precisely. There is no way to view facing pages at the same time.

Users of the former versions of Pages have complained loudly in online Apple forums. One thread on the Apple support website has 82 pages of complaints. In response, Apple has since said it will begin adding back some of the features it removed. 

Recently, the company started by putting back the ability to customise the toolbar and restoring slide transitions that had gone missing in Keynote, its presentation software. A support document the company published online says additional features will start reappearing within six months.

And as with any software, there are still frustrations: Creating a document in the web-based Pages, which is technically still labelled a “beta” service, leaves the user wondering just how to give the new document a name. And sending a copy of a document, instead of a link, is more difficult than it should be.

Still, for many people, who own a Mac and an iPad, Pages can now legitimately serve as their only word-processing software. They may even find they like it better than Word.