Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer isn’t afraid to speak his mind when it comes to competition, and that’s exactly what he did just recently speaking about Google and Dropbox. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Ballmer discussed the company’s new Office 2013 suite, as well as its SkyDrive cloud storage service, and said that he’s confident that Microsoft’s new Office products will gain a lot of users, despite competition from Google’s own set of office suite products.

Speaking about Dropbox, Ballmer mentioned that the service’s 100 million users “sounds like a pretty small number,” and he noted that Office users outnumber Dropbox’s user base by quite a few. While he wasn’t necessarily trying to downplay Dropbox’s significance, Ballmer said that it’s merely just a “fine little startup.”

Microsoft currently boasts around one billion Office users, and while many think that number will stay stagnant, Ballmer disagrees and says that the service will continue to grow and bring in new users, thanks to the “more and more people” entering the classroom or office and taking on more information-heavy jobs.

Towards the end of the interview, Ballmer was asked about Office coming to the iPad, and declined to directly comment on it. However, he did say that the company is “very glad” and “very happy” with the product, and “it makes sense on the devices like the Mac and the PC.” As far as future plans for an iPad version of Office, though? “We’ll see what we see in the future.”

[via Bloomberg Businessweek]

Ballmer not worried about competition from Google, downplays Dropbox is written by Craig Lloyd & 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.

Microsoft Office 2013 has gone up for sale, with the company’s US and UK stores now listing multiple versions of the new software package. Priced from $139.99/£109.99 for Office Home and Student 2013, but also available in Home and Business, and Professional versions, the new suite will make its official debut later today at an event in New York.

Eager beavers can get a head-start, however, though so far only UK shoppers get the option to either receive a boxed version of Office 2013 through the mail, or to download it straight away from Microsoft’s site; US shoppers only have the download option. The Home and Business version is priced at $219.99/£219.99, while the Professional version is $399.99/£389.99.

Microsoft tipped the imminent launch of Office 2013 yesterday, with the company’s official Office Twitter account blurting out the news. The package – which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote in all bundles, though more expensive versions throw in Outlook, Publisher, and Access – has been available for testing since late 2012.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is tipped to be working on a version of Outlook for Windows RT, adding the email, task and calendar app to the existing version of Office for RT. That could potentially make RT-based tablets such as Microsoft’s own Surface more appealing to enterprise customers, so the rumors go.

[via The Inquirer]

Office 2013 on sale now is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Despite some launch hiccups with Windows 8 and its related devices, Microsoft has received a smashing bit of news in the form of a new $617 million licensing agreement that will bring the fledgeling OS to 75 percent of US DoD personnel. The deal also includes Office 2013 and Sharepoint 2013 Enterprise, and will let users access the software “from any location, and any supported device, while taking advantage of enhanced security,” according to Redmond. Microsoft added that the agreement was “the most comprehensive” it’s ever signed with the sprawling government arm, which plans to use the software for a wide range of priorities from cybersecurity to mobility. Meanwhile, the software giant is working to achieve the coveted, though highly unwieldy-sounding “Army Golden Master and Air Force Standard Desktop Configuration” compliance for Windows 8 — which we imagine is a good thing, and hope to never have to type out again. To reconnoiter further, check the sources below.

Filed under: Software, Microsoft

Comments

Source: US Department of Defense, Microsoft

If you needed more proof that Microsoft Office for mobile devices was coming, this is about as good as it gets without an official announcement. The Verge was able to get their hands on a few screenshots from the rumored apps, which don’t give us a lot of insight, but they do give us hints on what to expect.

Microsoft has mostly remained quiet about its plans for Microsoft Office on mobile devices, but according to multiple sources, the company will release a mobile version of Microsoft Office for iOS and Android sometime in early 2013. And thanks to the screenshots, it seems that Office for mobile devices is very real.

Office Mobile will be a set of free apps that allow mobile users to view Microsoft Office documents on the go. A Microsoft account is required, just like on SkyDrive and other Microsoft services, and it will allow access to view documents. With an Office 365 subscription, users will be able to edit documents through the apps as well.

From the looks of it, Office Mobile will only include Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, which are only a portion of the apps available in the full Office Suite, but they’re arguably the most used. The app will allow for basic editing, but it’s said that editing features won’t have the same functionality as the desktop Office version. In other words, the desktop version will still be the way to go for advanced editing. While Office Mobile is still rumored and not officially announced yet, a company spokesperson did say that “Office will work across Windows Phone, iOS and Android.”

[via The Verge]

Microsoft Office for iOS and Android unveiled in leaked screenshots is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.