Google's Quickoffice Purchase Takes Aim At Windows 8 63
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Soulskill
from the going-for-center-mass dept.
from the going-for-center-mass dept.
alphadogg writes "Google announced Tuesday it has acquired Quickoffice, whose software could bolster Google Apps on tablets and smartphones. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Google's second buyout in two days (yesterday it announced the acquisition of social/advertising company Meebo) gives the company more ammunition in its fight for the mobile office versus Microsoft, which is steaming ahead with Windows 8 and its Office apps. Quickoffice offers apps for Android and Apple iOS tablets and smartphones, but it's unclear what will become of the iOS ones under Google's domain."
Apple's weakness is in the office suite (Score:4, Interesting)
On the Macs, Apple relies on Microsoft to provide the office suites
On the iPad / iPhone, Apples again relies on others to provide the office suites
Which means, unless Apple purchases a 3rd party which made office suite for iOS, it may have to settle with an office suite that is owned by Google
Completing another piece of the jigsaw (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm guessing here, but we have to consider that Office Apps are required for a platform to be seriously considered by the enterprise. Microsoft have Office, Apple have iWork, and this gives Google QuickOffice. All three also have an online viewing/editing/storage option too.
What can we expect in the future then? Google will presumably make the software free at some point, bundled with their platforms. Tablet Androids would be first, and then at some point a port to Google's ChromeOS must surely happen to make these devices more attractive. However I wonder how easy it will be to take software optimised for mobile devices with small screens and translate it to a laptop or desktop environment.
Re:Completing another piece of the jigsaw (Score:5, Interesting)
My experience is that both Exchange and Outlook are both terrible, badly written and hard to maintain..... but work just that bit better than the alternatives, and users are familiar with it and it does everything they need (which seems to be different for each user...)