Re:Microsoft looking to release Office for Linux in 2014
by InclinedPlane on Thursday February 07, 2013 @05:30PM
(#5184956)
Tablets are fine for typing-heavy work, just use a bluetooth keyboard with the tablet on a stand. This mode of operation isn't common yet, but that's because tablets are still relatively new.
Edit: to clarify, right now we're at a point where it's rare for a tablet (or smartphone) to be someone's primary or only computing device, but as they become more popular that will increasingly be the case, and then people will develop new habits and new modes of use to fit these devices into their work or their lives. Meaning that if people are using them at work then they'll tend to have some way to use a physical keyboard with them for the times when an onscreen keyboard won't cut it.
Re:Microsoft looking to release Office for Linux in 2014
by fluidcruft on Thursday February 07, 2013 @10:02AM
(#5182362)
I don't think it's so much tablets that are the problem. It's that programs are steadily being replaced with platform-agnostic managed things like web services. Maybe we're not there with Office yet, but once you're at the point that Office is the only primary anchor holding you to Windows, it's a pretty big target for someone else to move in.
Apple's made no real moves to become more corporate friendly in the desktop space (and things like their recent blocking of Java definitely won't help them) and Linux on the corporate desktop is miles away from adoption (some public bodies which did adopt it have moved back to Windows).
People talk about the new era of tablet computing, but tablets are pretty much useless for a lot of typing-heavy work. Perhaps eventually a descendant of the tablet (perhaps something like the chromebook) will start to dislodge windows for lighter-weight corporate usage, but I believe it'll be a long time coming. Most large companies have piles of weird internal web-based tools which can't deal with touch, perhaps run on Java or Flash or depend on IE6 technologies, and the slow and cumbersome process of replacing them will take an age.