Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft has announced that Office 365 Home Premium now has Bing Apps for Office, which integrate Bing-powered apps in the office suite. There are a total of five Bing apps that have been added for Excel and Word, adding a handful of functionality that was previously unavailable. The apps have all been rolled out, and are available now.

The five new apps are comprised of Bing Finance, Maps and Dictionary for Excel, as well as Image Search, News Search, and Dictionary for Word. Going through them one-by-one, Bing Maps pictured above allows Excel users to map data on a visual map, providing such data as location names and tools for navigating within the map, such as zoom and panning. Road view, birds eye view, and map view are all available.

Then there’s the Bing Finance app for Excel, which is currently in beta mode. The Finance app aids in generating financial portfolios within Excel, providing real-time financial data, such as stock prices, within the program. There’s the Dictionary app for both Word and Excel, which is about what you’d expect in a dictionary. Spellings and definitions are provided.

Finally, there’s News search and Image search for Word. News search, like the name suggests, allows one to search for news and videos within a Word document, particularly handy if you’re writing a report or research paper. Then there’s Image search, which allows for users to find images from within a Word document, then easily embed them in the document via an “insert” button.

[via Bing]

Office 365 Home Premium now has Bing Apps for Office is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week the folks at Microsoft have introduced Office 2013 to the universe, complete with a cloud-connected user experience that takes the central word processing and document experience into the future. You’ll be asked to work with SkyDrive as well as the full Office 365 package to store your files online at all times right out of the box – you don’t have to, but the process you’re working with here essentially says, “why not?”

This version of Microsoft’s Office takes the aesthetics into the modern world, complete with flat graphics and texture-less interfaces all around. You’ve got some slightly more touch-friendly bits and pieces here and there as well, but overall you’ll find this experience just as or more user-friendly for all machines than its ever been before. Office 2013 is made for any kind of computer, but a keyboard and a mouse will still allow you to do your work fastest.

If you do plan on working with Office 365 for a full set of cloud functionalities, you’ll be tossing down $100 USD per year. If it’s worth that amount to have all of your documents in the cloud ready for editing anywhere, collaborating with colleagues anywhere, and getting software updates without thinking about them, then have at it! This amount of cash also essentially makes your Office experience a remote one, allowing you to work with documents in what’s essentially a full standard user experience in a browser whenever you like.

But there’s the point at which you’ll be deciding whether you want a full official Office work environment or if you’re all about Google Docs. We’re expecting that businesses across the board will be switching over to Office 365 sooner than later to make their end-user experience as smooth as possible. Office documents edited in the cloud are completely compatible with Office 2013 applications offline, this making the start-to-finish experience easy for all users.

Beyond Office 365′s online experience, your Office 2013 setup is extremely similar to past iterations of Office, with the biggest changes coming in the way you’re able to interact with the individual apps. There are new standard layouts in PowerPoint, OneNote is now working virtually with SkyDrive, and again, all of the interfaces are made with slightly larger buttons than past iterations so you’re able to easily work with your touchscreen computer. Office 2013 may not be limited to Windows 8, but it’s certainly been designed with Windows 8 touch machines in mind first and foremost.

Outlook 2013 has taken the better points of the re-boot of Outlook.com from 2012 and make it into an email program worth using on the desktop. You’ll find that in-line replies to contacts, quick previews of emails with mouse hovers, and instant connections to all of your Microsoft account contacts make for an extremely enticing alternative to whatever other desktop email solution you’re using now.

Access 2013 is an app that most users will likely never touch – but if you’re all about desktop asset tracking, creating custom web apps and home databases, and project management in general, you’ll be good to go. This is the new premiere tool for making your asset tracking a reality. Excel, Word, and PowerPoint continue to be the name-brand heroes of their own fields of course, only seeing improvements in this newest iteration of the Office suite.

The bottom line is that this upgrade is necessary for everyone who is at the top of their field in Office-centric workplaces and you’ll certainly want to consider adding the extra $100 a year to be fully cloud connected if you’re an on-the-go editor. If you’re an average everyday Office user, you’ll also want to consider the $140 USD for the standard version of Office 2013 for a full upgrade – it’s just a whole lot prettier.

You can purchase Office 2013 from Microsoft right this minute and download the whole suite in no time at all – it took us around 10 minutes from start to finish – real deal! Have a peek at the timeline below to see additional insight on the Office 2013 suite and Office 365 as well, and be sure to ask any questions you may have about the software below as this is a Live Review!

Office 365 Home Premium Review is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We’ve heard recently that Microsoft was rumored to release its latest Office suite on January 29, and it looks like that’s actually the case, thanks to a tweet by the Microsoft Office Twitter account, as well as a new landing page on Microsoft’s website for Office 365, both of which mention a January 29 release date.

According to the tweet, it looks like Microsoft will be launching Office 2013 and Office 365 tomorrow in Bryant Park in New York City. Microsoft released Office 2013 to manufacturing on October 11 last year, and they made it available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers later on. The company has been pointing to Q1 2013 release date for awhile, and now its finally official.

Office 2013 has been available for the Surface tablet for some time, as well OEM Windows 8 machines, but tomorrow will mark the point where desktop users who don’t have the new Office suite will finally be able to grab a version for themselves, as well as take advantage of the new Office 365 subscription service.

Back in November, we were teased with a few leaked screenshots of Office for iOS and Android. While we haven’t heard anything on that front for awhile, we’re curious if Microsoft will make the apps available tomorrow, but we also won’t be surprised if they wait a little while to make the software available on mobile devices. Also, just recently, Microsoft and the City of Chicago signed a deal that would see some 30,000 city employees move to Office 365 for their communication needs, a deal that will see the new subscription service jump to a great start right off the bat.

[via ZDNet]

Microsoft Office 2013 general availability arriving tomorrow is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In an effort to move into the 21st century, the city of Chicago has signed a deal with Microsoft to bring the company’s Office 365 cloud services to city employees. Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the news today, and the city will move 30,000 employees to Microsoft’s Office 365 for cloud-based email and other productivity apps.

The City will consolidate its three disparate email systems into one Microsoft Office 365 environment in an effort to improve collaboration, enhance security, and provide both mobile and desktop access. This new strategy will save the city more than $1.3 million in costs over the next four years, which is an 80% decrease in cost per employee.

Mayor Emanuel says that the city is “leveraging new technologies to streamline and modernize the way we do business in order to provide the residents of Chicago with the best service at the best price.” Microsoft is currently preparing an update to Office 365 that will include support for its new Office 2013 desktop applications, including the ability for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users to stream apps to PCs using Microsoft’s cloud offerings.

Chicago isn’t the first city to take advantage of Microsoft’s services. The city joins a rapidly growing list of state and local governments that are using the services, including San Francisco, the State of California, and Minnesota. Chief Information Officer Brett Goldstein says that the move to cloud services is a “major step” towards modernizing the city.

City of Chicago signs deal with Microsoft for city-wide cloud services is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft has revealed the pricing for its Office 365 version for college students, Office 365 University. Cloud-based and very similar to the desktop variety of Office, Office 365 University has low pricing and a subscription term that compliments the user’s student career. The product can be snagged for $79.99.

The low price is for a four-year subscription, making the total monthly cost $1.67. Students who elect to continue their education or who stay in school longer than four years can renew their subscription for another four years at the same cost. Also included in the price is 27GB of SkyDrive storage, to which files created with Office 365 are saved.

Office 365 University provides access to six applications: Word, OneNote, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, and Access. Like the regular variety of Office, college students can get Office 365 access for free by purchasing Office University 2010 (Windows), and Office 2011 (Mac). Both products are priced at $100.

Microsoft has upped its game recently by making Office 365 HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliant, something med schools require. This gives it an edge over Google’s education office apps, which are free. So far, Duke, Emory, Thomas Jefferson University, and the University of Washington have all jumped on the Office 365 wagon.

[via Information Week]

Microsoft unveils Office 365 University pricing is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.