Thats like saying you hate Word because people write bad essays with it.
Its unrelated to the software..its a criticisms of the user
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iWorks will kill MS Office
- Thread starter Dave McK
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Thats like saying you hate Word because people write bad essays with it.
Its unrelated to the software..its a criticisms of the user
1. 95% of computer users have MS office??
2. Not using iWork has very little to do with having to 'work with the rest of the world'. In fact iWork is more compatible with MS Office than Office itself. You can open office documents and your documents can be exported to Office users, including your 'track changes' and what not.
3. In three years, the iPad user base will be substantial – by which time, Office would have already taken a dent from easily available alternatives (need I say free) such as OpenOffice and Google Docs. Given the free web alternatives and a fabulous user experience offered by iWork, MS Office will become less compelling for more users and start to decline steadily. Unless there is a concrete effort from MS to halt this wave, this is coming...
2. Not using iWork has very little to do with having to 'work with the rest of the world'. In fact iWork is more compatible with MS Office than Office itself. You can open office documents and your documents can be exported to Office users, including your 'track changes' and what not.
3. In three years, the iPad user base will be substantial – by which time, Office would have already taken a dent from easily available alternatives (need I say free) such as OpenOffice and Google Docs. Given the free web alternatives and a fabulous user experience offered by iWork, MS Office will become less compelling for more users and start to decline steadily. Unless there is a concrete effort from MS to halt this wave, this is coming...
Ew, I hate using Office. It takes 10 steps to do something that only takes one click in iWork. It's complicated and useless. Microsoft software engineers just can't do their job that well.
I prefer iWork any day.
I prefer iWork any day.
Yes, seeing as how most of the world uses Windows, and even plenty of Mac users here boot camp Windows to use MS Office, I'd say it's probably > 95%.
Really? As other posters have already said, you can copy spreadsheets into Word and still get full functionality. Sounds like MS Office is a lot more compatible with itself!
Sorry but this is just plain delusional. Not only are you assuming the iPad user will be substantial (and that's not a given due to its mixed response), but you and the OP (nothing personal) are completely ignoring the reality.
The entire world's economy is run on MS Office. Outlook. Word. Excel etc. etc.
I bolded Excel cause just about any and every company uses it and it's functionality is impossible to beat.
Believing that MS Office will just disappear is ignoring the reality that you probably earn your money to spend on Apple products because either you or someone you interact with (a client or whatever) is making funny from a company or corporation that runs MS Office.
LOL. The first three Word documents I tried on Pages didn't display at all properly. The fourth crashed Pages.
Keynote is great, but iWork compatibility with Office is less than stellar.
Pros of iWork:
Cheap
Keynote owns powerpoint
Pros of MS Office:
Used by everyone
Word owns Pages
Overal its very unlikely that iwork would be able to take marketshare from MS office, its just too common. iWork isnt greatly compatible with office either, you can write something in iwork and save as word doc pretty easily, but you cant edit word docs without manually saving which sucks.
Cheap
Keynote owns powerpoint
Pros of MS Office:
Used by everyone
Word owns Pages
Overal its very unlikely that iwork would be able to take marketshare from MS office, its just too common. iWork isnt greatly compatible with office either, you can write something in iwork and save as word doc pretty easily, but you cant edit word docs without manually saving which sucks.
Watching the press conference made we want to try iWork. I got Microsoft Office (for free, by the way 
) with my MacBook Pro so I don't have to worry about compatibility, but I have to say I'm not impressed with the Mac version of MS Office at all. Not that I'm surprised.
) with my MacBook Pro so I don't have to worry about compatibility, but I have to say I'm not impressed with the Mac version of MS Office at all. Not that I'm surprised. It is indeed an assumption that every PC user is also an Office user. MS Office isn't free with every PC in fact it could cost about quarter to a third of the whole PC that is why I seriously doubt your numbers. If you ignore all the home PCs, your number may be believable. iPad iWork shows tremendous potential among home users and students whose preferences are more in line with which App is more fun to use than wondering whether or not it has bazillion formulas and options that they couldn't care less about.
I have been using iWork to open Excel and Word documents at my windows-centric workplace for about two years and have yet to run into any big problem. There have been times when my Pages would be able to open the '03 and '07 Word files while half my windows colleagues were scampering around due to different Office versions. Of course, it all depends on the particular file and your mileage may vary.
MS Office monopoly maybe everywhere now the only direction they could move is probably down. Seeds for such a trend seems to have started in many pockets around.
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/customers.html
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Major_OpenOffice.org_Deployments#Governments
i have both, but it looks like numbers is missing some features that i need for my spreadsheets for work. I use ms office in my vmware XP, only because the mac office cant color tabs.
OpenOffice will kill it...
The main reason people in the business world still pay money for MS Office is inertia. I can do basically everything I need to do with OpenOffice, AND export to MS formats. So can most people. Why in the world would I pay money to Microsoft for only slightly better tools?
MS Office is basically a dead end. There isn't much room to improve these tools, so they keep adding little obscure features and such. MS Office will hang around for a while as people have massive excel spreadsheets with zillions of macros that will be hard to replace... but eventually, MS Office doesn't make sense. MS might adapt and come out with something new, but I don't see it happening.
And then there's google docs...
The main reason people in the business world still pay money for MS Office is inertia. I can do basically everything I need to do with OpenOffice, AND export to MS formats. So can most people. Why in the world would I pay money to Microsoft for only slightly better tools?
MS Office is basically a dead end. There isn't much room to improve these tools, so they keep adding little obscure features and such. MS Office will hang around for a while as people have massive excel spreadsheets with zillions of macros that will be hard to replace... but eventually, MS Office doesn't make sense. MS might adapt and come out with something new, but I don't see it happening.
And then there's google docs...
Rewind the clock a few years, such hubris could be repeated, except replace Word with WordPerfect and Excel with Lotus. Face it, software comes, dominates, then dies.
[CUE: Circle of Life video ...]
Office has had a good long run. It may last several more years. But to think that any of its components are "impossible to beat" ignores history.
mt
Wordstar lost to wordperfect because wordperfect was substantially better. Wordperfect lost to word because word was substantially better. Visicalc lost to lotus because 1-2-3 was substantially better. Lotus did not lose to multiplan because multiplan was not substantially better. Lotus lost to excel because excel was substantially better.
As has been said many times in this thread, word and excel are simply better in most ways than pages and numbers, at least for the substantial majority of current office suite users.
Add in the fact that iWork has significant file format incompatibilities with the existing market leader and that it doesn't even run on 95% of the world's computers.
I have both. I use them for different things.
For documents: Back in my PC days, I always preferred WordPerfect to Word because "reveal codes" allowed me better control over formatting, and Word usually took so many steps to do simple things. On my Macs, I prefer Pages to Word because Pages in document mode is simpler and allows me to concentrate more on content. Pages in layout mode is so much more fun.
For spreadsheets: Pages is pretty, and I use it when what I'm doing is more of a graphic than a numeric spreadsheet. Excel has moooooooooore math/computational features. So I prefer it when doing spreadsheet gymnastics.
For presentations: Keynote!!!!!! Nuff said.
I have both, and I hope one doesn't kill the other.
For documents: Back in my PC days, I always preferred WordPerfect to Word because "reveal codes" allowed me better control over formatting, and Word usually took so many steps to do simple things. On my Macs, I prefer Pages to Word because Pages in document mode is simpler and allows me to concentrate more on content. Pages in layout mode is so much more fun.
For spreadsheets: Pages is pretty, and I use it when what I'm doing is more of a graphic than a numeric spreadsheet. Excel has moooooooooore math/computational features. So I prefer it when doing spreadsheet gymnastics.
For presentations: Keynote!!!!!! Nuff said.
I have both, and I hope one doesn't kill the other.
not going to happen
There are actually simple reasons why iWork on the iPad will not increase in market share.
1. It is not free.
It costs about $10 for each component.
2. No one is seriously thinking about doing full word/number processing on the ipad using that touch keyboard.
3. You buy the accessory keyboard for a whooping $70 bucks
and defeat the whole purpose of having a tablet in the first place. Might as well get the laptop.
4. I just interviewed for a job as a tech support. The company is planning on upgrading all computers to windows 7 and MS Office. YUP windows/word popularity is increasing on the good critical reception of windows 7.
5. The iPad has an uphill battle to fight. I am not sure it'll be anything more than a novelty among the rich and impulse buyers.
6. MS OneNote is an amazing piece of software. Put that on the iPad with handwriting input and maybe then I'd consider replacing my netbook.
There are actually simple reasons why iWork on the iPad will not increase in market share.
1. It is not free.
It costs about $10 for each component.
2. No one is seriously thinking about doing full word/number processing on the ipad using that touch keyboard.
3. You buy the accessory keyboard for a whooping $70 bucks
and defeat the whole purpose of having a tablet in the first place. Might as well get the laptop.
4. I just interviewed for a job as a tech support. The company is planning on upgrading all computers to windows 7 and MS Office. YUP windows/word popularity is increasing on the good critical reception of windows 7.
5. The iPad has an uphill battle to fight. I am not sure it'll be anything more than a novelty among the rich and impulse buyers.
6. MS OneNote is an amazing piece of software. Put that on the iPad with handwriting input and maybe then I'd consider replacing my netbook.
The short answer is no - it won't kill MS Office.
Something else to consider - you talk about the future of the iPad and iWorks. But you fail to consider the future of MS Office and act as if the current incarnation is the one that will exist.
MS Office will no doubt move more towards the cloud. And when that happens it's anyone's guess what the cost will be vs other software. And as others have said - MS Office really is at critical mass. It's the "norm."
When you go to a job interview - they don't ask if you know iWorks. They ask if you have MS Office skills.
Very few job posting ask if you have iWorks skills. Or Pages skills, etc. Why do you think that is?
Do you sincerely think that the world will change overnight? Please - you have offices still running Windows 98.
Even if MS stopped making MS Office today - it would still be YEARS before companies (enough to make it an issue) switched over to something else.
The phrase "xxx killer" is overused. Kindle Killer? iPhone Killer? MS Office Killer? please. Wishful and/or naive thinking....
Something else to consider - you talk about the future of the iPad and iWorks. But you fail to consider the future of MS Office and act as if the current incarnation is the one that will exist.
MS Office will no doubt move more towards the cloud. And when that happens it's anyone's guess what the cost will be vs other software. And as others have said - MS Office really is at critical mass. It's the "norm."
When you go to a job interview - they don't ask if you know iWorks. They ask if you have MS Office skills.
Very few job posting ask if you have iWorks skills. Or Pages skills, etc. Why do you think that is?
Do you sincerely think that the world will change overnight? Please - you have offices still running Windows 98.
Even if MS stopped making MS Office today - it would still be YEARS before companies (enough to make it an issue) switched over to something else.
The phrase "xxx killer" is overused. Kindle Killer? iPhone Killer? MS Office Killer? please. Wishful and/or naive thinking....
I use it for the PC. Really, OO does just about everything MS does, and it's free. You might find in some rare cases if you're trying to format something especially complex, you'll run into import/export compatibility problems with MS, but mostly just that the formatting will look wrong... which is easily correctable. If I was starting a small business, there's no way I'd buy MS Office. As it is, I do have a side-business, and never had a problem with OO.
All that said, they do force us to use MS products at work (~400 people organization... though, I do know some people who use OO anyway, just out of spite). The only tool that I find especially productive is Outlook... in particular for the shared calendar than anything else - which makes it easy to set up meetings, etc. But, the "search" in outlook is horrible and slow. I used to use thunderbird, and miss the search/filter in that.
I use OOO and iWork on my Mac. I use Office 2007 at work. I hate almost everything about Office 2007. Still, I plan to pick up a copy of MS Office for use at home. Why? I can get it at a steep discount and iWork doesn't quite do everything I need. I can confirm that iWork doesn't save to docx, xlsx and pptx formats. It can open them, but if I create an original doc in Pages, it only offers to save as .doc.
MS Office is fundamentally better in capability in 2 out of 3 applications: Word and Excel. iWork is fundamentally better in design and usability. But design and usability don't mean much if you simply can't do something like opening a doc at home and having it look exactly like it did at work. Will iWork ever kill MS Office? It is possible, but only if Apple decides to sell iWork for Windows and if they decide to go after the business market more aggressively. It could also happen if market share on the desktop flip-flops with Apple on top. Neither of these scenarios is very likely. And of course, every Office app is judged on how well it imports and exports M$ formats. Neither OOO nor iWork do this perfectly.
With the advent of a credible OS from M$, Windows 7, the pressure to switch has never been less urgent. For Apple to grow its market share, it needs to find a new "killer app" to differentiate itself from M$. The old days of "Windows simply doesn't work" are now history. OS X may be better than Windows 7 in many ways, but Windows 7 works. It's a good thing Apple's fortunes aren't tied to desktop market share. This is probably part of the reason Jobs views the iPad as so important. Windows doesn't have a clue when it comes to touch interfaces. OS X clearly does. If iPad takes off, Apple could get more "halo" sales from iPad users who are delighted with their iPads and decide to go "all in" on Apple computing. It was iPod that led to a lot of Apple's current desktop and notebook success. Still, iPads aren't cheap. And the present design means it is probably not going to be your "only" computer whereas a netbook could be an "only" computer. In summary, two major obstacles are in the way before iWork can make a dent in Office: OS/Office platform market share, and capability of iWork vs Office. Better usability is not a magic bullet.
MS Office is fundamentally better in capability in 2 out of 3 applications: Word and Excel. iWork is fundamentally better in design and usability. But design and usability don't mean much if you simply can't do something like opening a doc at home and having it look exactly like it did at work. Will iWork ever kill MS Office? It is possible, but only if Apple decides to sell iWork for Windows and if they decide to go after the business market more aggressively. It could also happen if market share on the desktop flip-flops with Apple on top. Neither of these scenarios is very likely. And of course, every Office app is judged on how well it imports and exports M$ formats. Neither OOO nor iWork do this perfectly.
With the advent of a credible OS from M$, Windows 7, the pressure to switch has never been less urgent. For Apple to grow its market share, it needs to find a new "killer app" to differentiate itself from M$. The old days of "Windows simply doesn't work" are now history. OS X may be better than Windows 7 in many ways, but Windows 7 works. It's a good thing Apple's fortunes aren't tied to desktop market share.
This is probably part of the reason Jobs views the iPad as so important. Windows doesn't have a clue when it comes to touch interfaces. OS X clearly does. If iPad takes off, Apple could get more "halo" sales from iPad users who are delighted with their iPads and decide to go "all in" on Apple computing. It was iPod that led to a lot of Apple's current desktop and notebook success. Still, iPads aren't cheap. And the present design means it is probably not going to be your "only" computer whereas a netbook could be an "only" computer. In summary, two major obstacles are in the way before iWork can make a dent in Office: OS/Office platform market share, and capability of iWork vs Office. Better usability is not a magic bullet.
Office also has the advantage of a rich ecosystem of plug-ins and companion programs targeted at all sorts of vertical markets. Things like document management/versioning software, table-of-authorities generation, citation checkers, integration into research databases, equation editors, etc.
Apple isn't exactly friendly to plug-ins.
Apple isn't exactly friendly to plug-ins.
I use OOO and iWork on my Mac. I use Office 2007 at work. I hate almost everything about Office 2007. Still, I plan to pick up a copy of MS Office for use at home. Why? I can get it at a steep discount and iWork doesn't quite do everything I need. I can confirm that iWork doesn't save to docx, xlsx and pptx formats. It can open them, but if I create an original doc in Pages, it only offers to save as .doc.
MS Office is fundamentally better in capability in 2 out of 3 applications: Word and Excel. iWork is fundamentally better in design and usability. But design and usability don't mean much if you simply can't do something like opening a doc at home and having it look exactly like it did at work. Will iWork ever kill MS Office? It is possible, but only if Apple decides to sell iWork for Windows and if they decide to go after the business market more aggressively. It could also happen if market share on the desktop flip-flops with Apple on top. Neither of these scenarios is very likely. And of course, every Office app is judged on how well it imports and exports M$ formats. Neither OOO nor iWork do this perfectly.
With the advent of a credible OS from M$, Windows 7, the pressure to switch has never been less urgent. For Apple to grow its market share, it needs to find a new "killer app" to differentiate itself from M$. The old days of "Windows simply doesn't work" are now history. OS X may be better than Windows 7 in many ways, but Windows 7 works. It's a good thing Apple's fortunes aren't tied to desktop market share.
Your history include times before 90% of the us population had a computer... Wordperfect or Lotus where just business class software for the businesses that mass adopt Micro computer processing.
NOW with so many people using Computers(Windows)... Office will NEVER die... iwork will never replace Office...
Wordperfect is still required by many courts for electronic submissions. Some things never die
(I miss wordstar
Thanks for the software genealogy ... but the point chewietobbacca made was that Word and Excel are "impossible to beat." Maybe Pages and Numbers won't replace Word and Excel, but to think that they're impossible to beat ignores recent history, as you so amply illustrated.
mt
No way. Microsoft office files need Microsoft office applications. The import/export features of other applications simply do not work with complex documents (tables, fonts, colors, backgrounds, animations, etc). They do not even work between different Mac versions of Office, between different Windows of Office or between Office on Mac vs Windows. But at least using Microsoft Office the nightmare is smaller.
That is why Microsoft Office on the iPad would be great.
But even greater would be a MacBook Air mini (400 g) or even a MacBook Air mini touch (no physical keyboard), both with a full Mac OS X inside (not iPhone OS). Which of course means Microsoft Office inside.
Why? Because the world uses Microsoft Office. And do not get me wrong: I hate Microsoft and all their products. But I need Microsoft Office to work because 99.99 of people use it. As much as I need a full computer with full Mac OS X inside but being pocketable and no more than 300 to 500 g or so. That is!
That is why Microsoft Office on the iPad would be great.
But even greater would be a MacBook Air mini (400 g) or even a MacBook Air mini touch (no physical keyboard), both with a full Mac OS X inside (not iPhone OS). Which of course means Microsoft Office inside.
Why? Because the world uses Microsoft Office. And do not get me wrong: I hate Microsoft and all their products. But I need Microsoft Office to work because 99.99 of people use it. As much as I need a full computer with full Mac OS X inside but being pocketable and no more than 300 to 500 g or so. That is!
Why don't we just wait how iWork works on the iPad. Maybe it works very good with Microsoft Office documents. Have faith.
I think $10 is a very good deal to make both documents/spreadsheets/presentations/etc. for Mac and PC. Even if PC compatibility is a bit less than expected, than it's still good for $10. Microsoft is asking at least $150 for Microsoft Office. That's the standard version, not professional.
I think $10 is a very good deal to make both documents/spreadsheets/presentations/etc. for Mac and PC. Even if PC compatibility is a bit less than expected, than it's still good for $10. Microsoft is asking at least $150 for Microsoft Office. That's the standard version, not professional.