History Uncut: Bill Gates unveils Microsoft Excel (1987)

Re:History Uncut: Bill Gates unveils Microsoft Excel (1987) by podperson on Monday September 17, 2012 @09:59AM (#4532567)

There are a ton of people out there who used to think they needed office, and have been using iOS happily without it. Microsoft made a huge mistake not releasing Office for iOS as soon as they could -- these people would all have bought it and remained convinced it was indispensable.

Now, most of them won't care (and probably figured out that Office wasn't actually very good at its core functionality, like word-processing and creating presentations, compared to cheaper, easier-to-use alternatives). In any event, the strangehold MS had over the enterprise where even people who didn't want Windows were forced to use it, is broken.

So... dream on.

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Re:History Uncut: Bill Gates unveils Microsoft Excel (1987) by rms on Tuesday September 18, 2012 @02:15AM (#4536642)

I definitely prefer Google Docs for presentation creating and non-reference heavy word processing, but I find spreadsheets is where Google Docs comes up short compared to Microsoft's product.

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Re:History Uncut: Bill Gates unveils Microsoft Excel (1987) by eckyptang on Monday September 17, 2012 @11:18AM (#4532941)

I get the feeling you've never used Office for anything serious?

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Re:History Uncut: Bill Gates unveils Microsoft Excel (1987) by r00fus on Monday September 17, 2012 @04:05PM (#4534576)

I think the parent commenter was merely stating that a large portion of Office users realize that what they're doing isn't "serious" - despite it being critical to their uses, it's something that doesn't require the full power of a desktop Office suite (and thus can be done without Microsoft).

Fact is, even Surface won't be as mobile as something that fits in your pocket - and I seriously doubt Microsoft can or even wants to make (perhaps a stripped down) Office into a $10 smartphone app.

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