Microsoft took center stage today with a new product, Office Suite for the iPad. It was also the public debut of Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s almost new CEO. I think he did a credible job. While Office Suite for iPad grabbed all the headlines, they also introduced another new product that may turn out to be more important than Office. More on that in a minute.
I watched the Office for iPad demo live on Microsoft’s News Website and was very impressed. It was not just Office ported over to the iPad…it was an Office built specifically for the iPad. Since the event, I have read several reviews of the product (one of which is listed below). All the reviews were extremely positive, one might say glowing.
Office for iPad is free to download now. It includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The free version allows you to use Office in basically a read-only mode. If you subscribe to Office 365, you can create and edit documents like you do on your computer.
The question is: will it be a hit in the marketplace? I think consumers like you and me will give it a lukewarm welcome, unless you subscribe to Office 365. We consumers have lived so long without Office on our iPads that we found credible substitutes.
However, I believe among business and corporate users, this will be a huge success. Employees are using their tablets and smartphones more and more to do company business. And more companies are allowing their employees to do it. So, Office will rapidly be adopted on the iPad by corporate employees as they already use it on their desktop and laptop computers. But there is one other reason why it will exceed.
The second announcement today was the introduction of the Enterprise Mobility Suite. Without getting into too much detail, this product will take a comprehensive approach to enabling corporate IT teams to manage devices, identity, access, security and Software-as-a-Service. The suite will work across Android, iOS and Windows. In other words, this product will allow mobile devices to be managed by the company so that company information is safe on portable devices. As I said, I think this announcement was more important than Office for iPad. Remember the vast majority of Microsoft’s income comes from its Enterprise products.
OK, it is time for me to get off my soap box and encourage you to read all of the stories here (or at least the ones that might interest you). There is a lot more than just Microsoft here. -JRC
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