Microsoft revamps Office for BYOD, cloud

18 Jul 2012

New software reengineered for an industry quickly moving in the direction of complete freedom of choice for users.

Just as the company has already reengineered its Windows 8 operating system  to work better on smartphones and tablet computers, so the new versions of its personal productivity applications will have touch-based controls – pinch, swipe, and so on. At the same time, there’s a clear emphasis on cloud service and storage. The updates, say analysts, reflect the company commitment to keeping pace in an industry that is rapidly shifting away from Microsoft’s traditional strengths in desktop and laptop computers.

Office 2013 is all about the cloud, said Ballmer, because “your modern office thinks cloud first”. Hence, all of its features can be accessed via the cloud storage service SkyDrive, and while the software giant will still support those who want to install their own copy of the software on client devices, it hopes that the majority will prefer a cloud-based version.

Accordingly, Ballmer announced three new Office 365 subscription services, all of which will include the new 2013 editions of the Office applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access.

These new subscriptions have been enhanced, perhaps in a counter to Google’s Docs service, and prices will be reduced to bring them closer to Google’s.  Office 365 Home Premium, designed for families and consumers, includes an additional 20GB of SkyDrive storage and 60 minutes of Skype world minutes per month. Office 365 Small Business Premium, meanwhile, offers enterprise-class email, shared calenders, website tools and high-definition web conferencing. Office 365 ProPlus, meanwhile, is designed for large companies, with “advanced business capabilities and the flexibility to deploy and manage in the cloud.”

Customers who sign up for these subscription versions of Office will be able to install the software on up to five devices, and will be able to access some version of the software on any PC, Mac or mobile device. Because the software synchs documents and settings, users can stop work on one device and transfer smoothly to another. Plus, if users are working on a ‘guest device’ – a hotel or conference centre PC, for example – they can log into the service and download a version of the software on a temporary basis.

The offerings appear designed to help Microsoft retain an important source of revenue as more people access documents from mobile devices. The new Office suite also reflects the fact that people tend to work from multiple computers — perhaps a desktop in the office, a laptop at home, and a tablet computer on a train and a smartphone at the doctor’s office.

New features in Office 2013 include:

-‘Inkling’, enabling use of a stylus to write notes on a device’s screen, which are converted automatically into text

-Integration with Yammer, a social network tool for businesses acquired by Microsoft in June 2012, and with Skype, acquired in 2011.

 -Integration of Bing Maps with Outlook email programme, so that users can tap on an address in an email to get directions to it.

 -A ‘reading’ mode on Word that makes it easier to read word-processing documents on a tablet or e-reader, by giving them the appearance of a book page