We’re just a few days away from the start of Google I/O, the search giant’s annual developer conference, and while we actually know very little about what Google plans to announce during its massive, three-hour keynote on Wednesday, there is something brewing in Mountain View that has Microsoft’s Office division on edge. Over the course of the last week, Microsoft started a very negative… → Read More
After Bing and its Scroogled campaign, Microsoft is now taking aim at Google Docs. Jake Zborowski, Microsoft’s senior product manager for Office, actually published two anti-Docs blog posts today: one hones in on document fidelity, the other – which includes a number of user testimonials – argues that Google Docs isn’t quite ready for primetime. → Read More
When it comes to productivity apps, Office is still clearly the market leader, and Microsoft is now also quickly iterating on its online apps for Office. When it comes to its competition with Google’s online productivity apps, though, it’s hard to figure out if Microsoft is feeling superior or threatened (or a bit of both). Earlier today, I talked to Michael Atalla, the director of product… → Read More
Microsoft’s Office Web Apps have been around since 2010. Since then, they have slowly morphed from lightweight document viewers to relatively full-blown Office apps. Going forward, Microsoft senior product marketing manager Amanda Lefebvre wrote in a blog post last night, the plan is “to deliver Office Web Apps that people can rely on to create polished Office documents from start to finish, all… → Read More
If you regularly need to open Microsoft Office documents in the browser, Google now offers you a new Chrome extension that renders Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly in the browser. Currently, these documents open in a Drive-based viewer, but after you install the new Chrome Office Viewer (which is officially still in beta), these documents will open directly in the browser. Until now, this… → Read More
Docstoc, the online store for high-quality professional and business documents that made its debut at the TechCrunch40 conference back in 2007, today announced that it has partnered with Microsoft to sell its content directly to Microsoft Office users from within the Office applications. When Office users search for templates, they will now encounter Docstoc as a provider and can start the… → Read More
According to a report by Boston Business Journal, Facebook appears to be looking for office space in Cambridge, Massachusetts — home to Harvard and the dorm room where Mark Zuckerberg started the social network. It would be an appropriate place for Facebook to set up a space to attract talent, as well as revel in some nostalgia. → Read More
Crocodoc allows you to upload your PDFs, Word and PowerPoint documents and convert them into HTML5 so you can easily embed them on your own sites. The company, which has converted over 60 million documents since and signed up the likes of Dropbox, LinkedIn, Yammer and SAP as customers since its launch in 2010, just announced the launch of its new HTML5 document converter with a revamped conversion… → Read More
In 2006, Google announced its first public release of what later became Google Docs, today known as Google Drive. It’s 2013, and only now does it feel like Microsoft is fighting back. Microsoft today announced the reinvention of its Office flagship application for consumers, with the debut of Office 365 Home Premium. The service – yes, it’s a subscription-based service – includes support for up to… → Read More
It’s time to fill up that new Square office, and it looks like the company is looking to add a slew of new engineer-types. I follow a Twitter account that spits out new jobs in the San Francisco/Valley area, and the last ten tweets have been for Square, and are engineer-related. → Read More
After a few months of public beta testing, Microsoft is taking the preview label of its updated Office Web Apps for SkyDrive today and making these new versions of its free web-based versions of Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint the standard for all SkyDrive and Outlook.com users. With this update, Microsoft is also introducing a number of new features that weren’t available in the last preview… → Read More
Microsoft announced that it planned to buy the popular peer-to-peer VoIP service Skype in early 2011 and the acquisition closed last October. Since then, though, Microsoft mostly left Skype alone and continued to run it as a stand-alone product. With the release of the next version of Office, though, Microsoft is now integrating Skype closely with its office suite. Skype will, for example, now… → Read More
Microsoft is expected to announce the next version of Office today, and it has already prepped a new “Office Next” blog in advance of the official details. Internally, the project has been known as Office 15, but unless Microsoft plans to disrupt its standard naming conventions (now, that would be news!), we’re awaiting arrival of “Office 2013″ today – a Windows 8-friendly version of the Office… → Read More
CloudOn - yes, the company known best for bringing Microsoft Office to the iPad – has just closed a $16 million Series B round led by The Social+Capital Partnership with participation from Translink Capital as well as existing investors Foundation Capital and Rembrandt Venture Partners. Mamoon Hamid, General Partner at Social+Capital, will now join CloudOn’s Board of Directors as a part of the… → Read More
We heard all the way back in November that Microsoft would launch an Office app for the iPad, and it would seem that the big day draws even closer.
According to an unverified image captured by The Daily, a version of Microsoft Office for iPad was caught running on one of Apple’s tablets. → Read More
A recent post on MinimalMac posits an interesting case for the slow, growing sense of the irrelevance of Microsoft, at least in the applications space. Go and read the piece – it’s excellent – but the gist is that for years Microsoft banked on Office being as important to users as, say, Windows. Office is Microsoft’s biggest money maker and for most of this decade no self-respecting IT department… → Read More
The iPad hasn’t been much of a revenue stream for Microsoft, which has been focusing on developing its own competing tablet ecosystem. But as a software company, it can’t ignore the scores of millions of Apple devices out there for long. Sure, it has a few things in the App Store, but one of its biggest earners, Office, is entirely absent. The Daily reports that this is likely to change shortly… → Read More
While I’m not sure what I think about the name, I do like WhiteyBoard’s game. WhiteyBoard is an “instant” whiteboard made of plastic that weighs less than two pounds and slaps right up on your wall without screws. Instead of those standard, crazily heavy and expensive whiteboards you’re used to, you simply buy a 18-inch, 3-foot, or 6-foot WhiteyBoard, slap it up, and… → Read More
Tired of Guitar Hero, and DJ Hero, and Rock Band Hero, and Flailing Wildly Hero games for your console? Ready to try a fresh new challenge, that might actually provide some real world skills, unlike frantically mashing colored buttons? Try your hand at Ribbon Hero for Microsoft Office! → Read More
Yesterday, we saw Microsoft shamelessly go after the iPhone with a video which played at Mobile World Congress for its new Windows Phone 7 Series. But it’s not just Apple that Microsoft is taking on with videos, it’s competitors like Google and OpenOffice.org as well.
On the Microsoft Office Videos channel on YouTube, you’ll find a series of videos which find Microsoft aggressively going after… → Read More
Lucky reader Andrew S. was picked by our sophisticated random number generator as the winner of our show us your office contest! Andrew tells us that “the only work that gets done is usually fueled by caffiene and any random snacks I have on hand.” That pretty well describes my own work ethic, so good on yer, Andrew! → Read More
Japanese conglomerates Fuji Heavy Industries, Sumitomo and Subaru are developing a new robot [JP, PDF] that’s able to clean office buildings autonomously. The yet to be named robot (pictured on the left) is sized at just 50x45x80cm, meaning it’s able to maneuver even along narrow paths. Its functions include vacuuming the floors and picking up garbage. → Read More
I know Robert Scoble thinks Office is still not dead, but his excitement about the Office 2010 tech preview should be taken with a large grain of salt. Of course, it was fun to be treated to an old-media style press barnstorm of the flogosphere, and the bells and whistles — poof, don’t need Photoshop, nor iMovie neither, and how about those browser features, cool — certainly will play… → Read More
The web has been abuzz the past few weeks with chatter about Microsoft’s announcement today at its Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans about the new version of Microsoft Office 2010. There’s even a mini-movie about its debut. Facing potential challenges from Google’s browser-based Apps products and its new Chrome OS, Microsoft has been touting its three screens strategy, which is the… → Read More
Office Team Lead: Guys, we need something really exciting to make people excited about Office 2010. Some Office Programmer Guy: Can we call Google to hint at ChromeOS to take the heat off of us when we launch on Monday? OTL: Already done. We need a video. → Read More
“Not yet—keep watching.” And thus, with those words, did Microsoft’s Steven Elop, who’s president of the Business Division, resurrect rumors of an iPhone version of Office. Hold onto your hats. → Read More
I’m here at the Web 2.0 Expo keynote, where Stephen Elop, President of Microsoft Business Division, hinted that we may be seeing Microsoft Office make its way to the iPhone some time soon. After his interviewer Tim O’Reilly caught him on the comment, Elop backtracked a bit, stating “not yet, keep watching”. But it’s clear that an iPhone version of Office is on his mind.
Rumors of an Office… → Read More
I Started Something has some cool video of what Microsoft foresees as the future of MS Office. Dubbed Office 2019, the video is a mish-mash of Surface-esque drawings and lots of cute little applications talking to each other by throwing data from circle to circle. Sadly, what we’ll really get in 2019 will probably look more like Office 95 than anything involving multi-touch puppies that bark… → Read More
Microsoft Office used to be a solid desktop publishing suite but after every new incarnation, it gets more bloated and overbearing. The leaked screenshots of Office 14 reaffirms Microsoft’s need to reinvent the wheel in order to drum up more sales. Personally, I’m content with Office 2000 but have ascended into the cloud that is Google Documents. I don’t think there is a feature that Microsoft… → Read More
In the war against software piracy, it seems that the rule is: If you can’t beat ‘em, lower the price to almost nothing and hope to make at least a little bit of money. Such is the case in China, where last year’s software piracy rate was over 80% according to the Financial Times. In the hopes of actually selling some stuff over there, Microsoft has lowered the price of Office Home and… → Read More
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