microsoft office

News

• Opinion: Microsoft, instead of turning the lights off on XP, make it open source

  To state the obvious,, Microsoft is hugely important economically and culturally, and as Peter Parker (AKA Spiderman) was told by his grandfather: "With great power comes great responsibility." (Actually Voltaire said it first but he said it in French so that doesn't count.)

• In Pictures: Top 25 iPhone and iPad apps for business

  Apple's iPhone and iPad may have been built for consumers, but the folks in Cupertino correctly guessed that what's good for consumers is good for businesses. The only stumbling block may be the growing volume of apps available: more 140,000 natively for the iPad and over 500,000 that work on the iPhone and iPad. Here are 25 go-to iOS apps for business users, from travel planning to document editing using Microsoft Office tools to time tracking to getting a good night's sleep.

• Office for iPad not happening? Don't believe the naysayers, claims site that leaked image

  PCWorld's Damon Brown says yesterday's Office for iPad tease by The Daily is probably just hype, and he's in good company -- Microsoft itself said in a recent New York Times story that the purported screenshot was bunkum.

• OnLive's train wreck: Office on the iPad

  Demos, like appearances, can be deceiving. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, one of the media hits was OnLive Desktop, a service that provisions a Windows 7 desktop environment that includes Microsoft Office 2010 to the iPad over an Internet connection. For many, the idea of being able to run the full Office suite is very appealing, given some of the limitations of the iPad's native office productivity tools such as Apple iWork suite (Pages, Keynote, and Numbers), Quickoffice, and Documents to Go.

• What completed Skype-Microsoft deal could mean for consumers

  Microsoft announced today that it has mostly wrapped up its acquisition of the Internet communications company Skype. The $8.5 billion deal has received approval from the major regulators, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Union, although a few holdouts remain--Russia, Ukraine, Serbia and Taiwan--which are expected to fall into line shortly.

• Office 365: Hands-on look at Microsoft's Cloud services

  Microsoft officially launched Office 365 on Tuesday.

• Office 365: Not for smaller businesses

  Now that the public beta has begun, I've had a little time to evaluate Office 365, and it's been an interesting experience. I run a small business and am already a Google Apps for Business user, so am I tempted to make the switch?

• Office 365 is mobile, but not mobile enough

  One of the most compelling aspects of Office 365 -- aside from its overall value -- is that you can access it from virtually anywhere. Because it is delivered from the cloud, the tools and services in Office 365 are not tied to a single PC or device, and data can be accessed from or synced among a desktop PC, the Web, and your smartphone...assuming you have a Windows Phone 7 smartphone.

• Google takes Office to the Cloud, security issues remain

  Google has begun testing an intriguing plugin for Microsoft Office. Google Cloud Connect is a devastatingly simple concept: rather than save your files to your computer's hard disk, it allows you to save them to your online Google Docs space.

• First look: Office 365 beta shows promise but lacks polish

  Office 365: A revamped offering that combines the features of BPOS with Office 2010. From what we've seen of the Office 365 beta, it still has a long way to go before it can be considered a true turnkey solution for business.

• Microsoft announces Office 2011 for Mac

  At a product launch event in New York Monday, Microsoft gave the media a day-early peek at Mac Office 2011, which went on sale at retail outlets and via Microsoft this morning. Eric Wilfrid, general manager of Microsoft's Mac business unit, explains how Mac Office 2011 is faster than previous versions, not only in startup, but in the execution of key tasks.

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  Hands-on with Microsoft Office Mobile 7

  Microsoft's release of Windows Phone 7 brings updated mobile-formatted Word, Excel, and PowerPoint programs, and OneNote Mobile, to your fingertips. The touchscreen-friendly revamp of Office Mobile is radically different from version 6.5. And files are supposed to resemble their appearance on the desktop more closely.

• Microsoft embraces cloud productivity with Office 365

  Microsoft has a dominant stake in office productivity software. However -- virtual monopoly aside -- the trend has been moving from locally installed applications to cloud-based solutions for some time. Now, Microsoft is combining various cloud-based elements to offer a new productivity suite -- Office 365.

• Windows Phone 7: Microsoft antes up in smartphone race

  Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer officially launched the Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system Monday and announced nine new phones and partnerships with wireless carriers. It's a landmark moment for Microsoft that needs to prove its Windows-centric phones, with links to Microsoft Office, Xbox Live, and a nascent library of apps, can woo the masses away from Apple, Android, and BlackBerry-based phones. The first handsets with the new OS will be available November 8, said Ballmer.

• Microsoft leaves some Office XP users patchless

  For the second time in nine months, Microsoft said it would not patch a vulnerability in an older product because creating a fix was "infeasible."