[wardoggie]

macFanDave, on 09 January 2013 - 05:56 PM, said:

It will depend on what M$ leaves out on the slimmed down versions of the Office apps.

As much as I've tried to love Numbers, it just doesn't have the power of Excel. Being able to add VBA functions to spreadsheets make them much more powerful.

I'm disappointed that Apple hasn't kept improving iWork and even more disappointed that they dropped AppleWorks altogether. AppleWorks integrated word processing, spreadsheets, drawing and painting AND databases more beautifully than anything I have seen since.

AppleWorks on the iPad -- FTW! And while I'm at it, let's have HyperCard, too!

I liked AppleWorks, too! I guess iWork got put on the back burner while they were developing other things. And, FWIW, you can still get the Hypercard experience (for a price):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperCard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveCode

[LefDEntertainment]

Hey! Don't go dissing Jermaine! He was everyone's 2nd favorite Jackson until Janet's cute ass grew up!

[macreader]

My experience is the opposite of RonAnnArbor. I see nothing but .doc and .docx in business documents and publishing, though I'm no fan of Word.
Personally, I don't care about Office on an iPad because I'd never consider doing serious writing on a tablet any more than I'd hammer a nail with a screwdriver. I love my iPad, MacBookPro and iMac, and each one has a place in my workflow. Typing on glass is cool unless you've got a lot of critical work to do right now.

[heisetax]

The only programs I use are FireFox, Chrome, Acrobat, PDFpenPro, VueScan & the other 99% of the time MS Excel. I use Excel for almost everything that I do As others have stated nothing compares to the useable power of Excel. Numbers is a joke. If Numbers will work for you then that means that you probably do not really need a spreadsheet.

My old time saying since 198 is, "if it is worth doing do it with Excel.:

[Dennistrator]

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I like you all very much, but the levels of hubris here are astounding. You don't use Office very much any more? MUST BE IRRELEVANT! It's like a person assuming rain no longer exists because it hasn't rained at their house in a week... Assuming that just because you are interested, that no one else will be either isn't analysis—it's hubris.

I don't think it's hubrisasmuch as myopia. Yes, Office is ubiquitous in the enterprise, but It is falling off the consumer radar. I use Word at work when necessary, but often my documents require graphics, and Word is just awful for that. In those cases, I prefer to create in Adobe Illustratorand export a PDF. g home. Pages on my Mac works exceeding well with whatever graphics I throw at it.

[Tlenzmeier]

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I like you all very much, but the levels of hubris here are astounding. You don't use Office very much any more? MUST BE IRRELEVANT! It's like a person assuming rain no longer exists because it hasn't rained at their house in a week. There are Fortune 500 companies where every single person there spends 40 hours a week using Office. These people wildly outnumber the tech journalists who are constantly talking about how irrelevant Office is anymore. Sales of Office are STILL GROWING and I can not count how many times I've had to have the "No, there really isn't a version of Office for the iPad your boss bought you as a nice end-of-year bonus. Yes, I understand that your whole job involves using MS Office, therefore making the iPad kind of useless." conversation every single time I do any kind of iPad instruction. They are stunned, because to them, that's the primary function of a computer. Assuming that just because you are interested, that no one else will be either isn't analysis—it's hubris.

I agree. As a financial analyst, I would be lost without Excel. Our company uses Outlook, as does most every other major corporation. Not everyone has such a myopic perspective.

[ingus]

Dennistrator, on 10 January 2013 - 05:48 AM, said:

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I like you all very much, but the levels of hubris here are astounding. You don't use Office very much any more? MUST BE IRRELEVANT! It's like a person assuming rain no longer exists because it hasn't rained at their house in a week... Assuming that just because you are interested, that no one else will be either isn't analysis—it's hubris.

I don't think it's hubrisasmuch as myopia. Yes, Office is ubiquitous in the enterprise, but It is falling off the consumer radar. I use Word at work when necessary, but often my documents require graphics, and Word is just awful for that. In those cases, I prefer to create in Adobe Illustratorand export a PDF. g home. Pages on my Mac works exceeding well with whatever graphics I throw at it.

Hubris induced myopia? Cranial rectosis? Does it matter? The main issue is that if you choose to run Office on the iPad, you can't. Not for technical reasons, but political, greedy policy reasons. The downside of curation...

[icerabbit]

grovbergian, on 09 January 2013 - 02:44 PM, said:

I like you all very much, but the levels of hubris here are astounding. You don't use Office very much any more? MUST BE IRRELEVANT! It's like a person assuming rain no longer exists because it hasn't rained at their house in a week.

There are Fortune 500 companies where every single person there spends 40 hours a week using Office. These people wildly outnumber the tech journalists who are constantly talking about how irrelevant Office is anymore. Sales of Office are STILL GROWING and I can not count how many times I've had to have the "No, there really isn't a version of Office for the iPad your boss bought you as a nice end-of-year bonus. Yes, I understand that your whole job involves using MS Office, therefore making the iPad kind of useless." conversation every single time I do any kind of iPad instruction. They are stunned, because to them, that's the primary function of a computer.

Assuming that just because you are interested, that no one else will be either isn't analysis—it's hubris.

Nobody here said that MS Office is irrelevant. I still spend a lot of time with it too. It is just that I have serious doubts that MS Office for iOS will be satisfactory.

Have you used MS Office on a tablet? I have, both on tablets and convertibles, as far back as 10 years go. It works very well with a stylus, but was slow for data entry, because either you are writing digital notes and depending on conversion or because you have to use the on-screen keyboard. Being that iOS is a finger touch system, the interface is going to get seriously dumbed down. Just look at other apps out that offer office type solutions to see it won't be the same MS Office you know. iOS apps are no substitute for the real thing and getting things done efficiently. Some reviews and small edits. Yes, but, creation, serious editing and mass data will remain the domain of the notebook & desktop for the foreseeable future. That doesn't mean the big corporate departments won't adopt it. At the same time, many companies have moved on to other systems. Time will tell.

[Paolomssb]

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There are Fortune 500 companies where every single person there spends 40 hours a week using Office.

This is great news for Mcrosoft. Their Surface is going to be an instant hit!

[letterj]

Quote

I like you all very much, but the levels of hubris here are astounding. You don't use Office very much any more? MUST BE IRRELEVANT! It's like a person assuming rain no longer exists because it hasn't rained at their house in a week. There are Fortune 500 companies where every single person there spends 40 hours a week using Office. These people wildly outnumber the tech journalists who are constantly talking about how irrelevant Office is anymore. Sales of Office are STILL GROWING and I can not count how many times I've had to have the "No, there really isn't a version of Office for the iPad your boss bought you as a nice end-of-year bonus. Yes, I understand that your whole job involves using MS Office, therefore making the iPad kind of useless." conversation every single time I do any kind of iPad instruction. They are stunned, because to them, that's the primary function of a computer. Assuming that just because you are interested, that no one else will be either isn't analysis—it's hubris. I agree. As a financial analyst, I would be lost without Excel. Our company uses Outlook, as does most every other major corporation. Not everyone has such a myopic perspective.

These two comments are probably more relevant than the post itself. While I don't believe people will ever need MS Office for personal use, business use will drive purchases of MS Office for decades. Excel is a must have and there simply is no replacement for a power user. Yes Numbers is "nice" but Excel is the one business users need therefore getting MS Office on iPads is a requirement for full corporate adoption.

[booberry]

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I own my own company, and work almost 100% with two Fortune 500 companies -- where Office is basically irrelevant -- almost all work is done using collaborative internet-based PDF programs -- PDF editing software allows groups to collaborate and make changes, additions, etc - its no longer a world in which word processing software is relevant -- Pages and Numbers create the same PDF's that everything else creates -- as do most free software programs. I can not, literally, for the last three years recall a time that any .DOC or .DOCX file has appeared in my inbox, not have I sent one out -- everything is PDF.
I have 30 employees and not one of them uses Office for documents -- and 80 percent of them work on iPads as their primary writing instrument.
The only expenditure that I keep getting across my desk week after week is for iPad-compatible bluetooth keyboards.

RonAnnArbor, what is the most popular iPad app your folks use for word processing and spreadsheets?