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Microsoft Software

Microsoft's Office Web Will Do iPhone, Linux, Mac 202

CWmike writes "Gregg Keizer reports Microsoft has clarified that its upcoming Office Web service will be available to users running Mac OS X and Linux, as well as from Apple's iPhone. The key to this cross platform-friendliness: Office Web will run in Firefox and Safari browsers, in addition to IE. Introduced last month, Office Web is a lightweight version of its Office suite that runs as an online service. I think it's time for Google to embrace OpenOffice.org to take on Microsoft head-on, as CW blogger Preston Gralla has argued for and described how to go about it."
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Microsoft's Office Web Will Do iPhone, Linux, Mac

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  • by 77Punker ( 673758 )

    So the real key to this is using AJAX like everyone else (Google, Yahoo, Slashdot, my employer's internal web apps, my grandmother) instead of some proprietary ActiveX bullshit.

    Way to go, Microsoft!

    • Yes, the key is AJAX. And the last time I checked you can't run C++ code in a browser, so openoffice is completely irrelevant. Unless you want to copy and paste the source code and resources into some kind of javascript C++-interpreter-and-JVM monster. Anyway, OpenOffice is so bloated already that it's snail slow and uses obscene amounts of memory.. even a rewritten javascript version of it would be horrifying.
      • Yeah, I really don't understand why people complain about MS Office when Open Office runs like a turd MS Office does not.

        Microsoft certainly has one good product; Office is great as long as you ignore Access.

        • by east coast ( 590680 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @06:02PM (#25753495)
          The key to Access is keeping what it is in perspective. Too many dopes out there are trying to turn Access into a catch-all solution and it wasn't developed that way. While it is crawling in that direction it's going to be a number of years before it ever bears any real fruit as something more than a low-end fast and dirty database appliance.

          There's a reason that it's only part of the MS Office suite and not the MS Office suite in and of itself.
          • Speaking as someone who has had to implement a 'real' RDBMS and system to interface with from an access 'database' that one of the PHB's threw together and had been used for awhile...I vote that Access be banned from the desktop!! Too often these consist of only one or two large tables, etc. Trying to get the data out of these things with mixed case fields, and free form text fields with lots of nice embedded returns quotes and commas can prove to be a nightmare. Good thing they say me a lot!
            • Oops that was pay me a lot, not say me a lot.

              Damned T9 software...

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              While it's pretty easy to make a horrid database in Access, bear in mind that if there were no Access those same 'Power Users' would be making their 'databases' in Excel instead. This is at least an order of magnitude worse as far as extracting useful data goes. Been there, done that, got the gray hair to prove it.

            • by colinnwn ( 677715 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @07:22PM (#25754557)
              If a PHB implemented a mission critical app in Access poorly, I understand your wrath.

              But frequently a project or analysis needs more capabilities than Excel provides, and the project isn't yet seen as business critical, and the timeliness or expense of getting IT on it is prohibitive. Access shines in these instances where a non-IT person can do some rather sophisticated data acquisition and analysis.

              If years later you get called in to detangle an Access database that through feature-and-scope-creep has turned into an important business tool that needs a higher level of reliability, take it as a triumph of the common man and modern software, and as your responsibility and privilege to elevate this application to the next level.
          • by nurb432 ( 527695 )

            Don't bother trying to defend MSAccess around here. While i agree with you totally that it has its place, and does well there, people are too thick headed to appreciate the truth.

            • by rts008 ( 812749 )

              "While i agree with you totally that it has its place, and does well there, people are too thick headed to appreciate the truth."

              I would have let your comment slide except for that(above) statement. Actually, I only have a problem with the statement after the last comma. (...people are too thick headed to appreciate the truth.")

              You, sir, are too thin to appreciate reality and the truth. Crawl back under your Redmond rock...this has been dealt with with FOSS for a long time now.

              The 'truth' as you subscribe t

          • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

            by Siridar ( 85255 )

            You think access is bad? Have you _seen_ what some people do with excel?

        • Microsoft has a "good" product in Office only in the sense that "good" is a relative term. If there were something else/anything else worth 1kb of space on my hard drive, then maybe Office wouldn't be so "good".
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by DigDuality ( 918867 )
          There are things you can do to increase OO.o 2.0's performance. 3.0 runs like a champ. and for those that say OO.o doesn't run in a browser..I present to you: http://www.ulteo.com/home/en/home?autolang=en [ulteo.com]
          • OpenOffice 3.0 has one feature I like: PDF import.

            It sucks very, very hard compared to Office 2003 for quite literally everything else I have tried to use it for.

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by Tatsh ( 893946 )

              I don't see how that is really useful. Shouldn't you already have the original text version of such a document? PDF was never made for 'importing' and editing.

              • You'd think, but on occasion I've lost .doc's I've exported to PDF, but still had the PDF I emailed to someplace (thanks, GMail!).

                Handy feature, and I'm not paying through the nose to get it from Adobe.

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                PDF was never made for 'importing' and editing.

                True, but the reality is, users want to be able to do just that.

                Developers who satisfy that wish are going to do very well for themselves over the next few years.

        • by spisska ( 796395 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @10:18PM (#25756385)

          Yeah, I really don't understand why people complain about MS Office when Open Office runs like a turd MS Office does not.

          Microsoft certainly has one good product; Office is great as long as you ignore Access.

          Not sure where to start with this. There are many cases where MS Office runs like a turd and OO.org does not.

          On the whole, MS Office is a superior product, but that doesn't mean there aren't areas in which OO.org does better, or that there aren't areas in which MS Office is a pure dung heap.

          Word vs Writer: For me, this is a draw. Both packages do most of the same things equally well. Word has more (and more easily accessible) 'power' features, but it's something of a fool's errand to try and produce a complicated document in either.

          At least with OO.org you have xml source to look at when the formatting goes awry. With MS Office, things seem to change on whim from system to system or depending on the phase of the moon, and there's no way to figure out what is happening or why (this is a common theme with all the MS Office apps).

          As far as trouble-shooting odd formatting, MS Word still lags behind WordPerfect 5.0, where you can see from the embedded codes exactly what will happen with your formatting. With Word, you're essentially praying that WYS is really WYG.

          Excel vs Calc: For now Excel is the clear winner, although with a few caveats. It's much better at doing things like inserting rows and columns -- inserts preserve formatting of surrounding cells, while in Calc inserts tend to get default formatting. Charting in Excel is also better, at least currently, in Excel.

          My big issue with Excel is its utter failure to handle properly comma-quote csv. For cells containing numbers, Excel will ignore its own formatting of those cells as text, and still export them as numbers -- meaning lots of havoc when dealing with things like IDs and Zip codes that have leading zeros. Also, try changing the format of something that looks like a date to text. Now try changing it back to a date.

          Powerpoint vs Impress: Not so much a question of which is better as which is less bad. On the whole Impress seems to mangle things a lot less, and seems to make far fewer (wildly incorrect) assumptions about what you're trying to do.

          It's easier to throw a presentation together in Powerpoint, but nearly impossible to make it look really good. (If you've got a Powerpoint presentation you think looks really good, you've never seen a really good-looking presentation.)

          Access vs Base: This is a tough one, mainly because while these products look similar they are actually very different.

          Access actually does pretty well for what it is and within its own limitations. Yes, it is a toy database but it does let you do database-type operations on small data sets quickly and easily.

          On the other hand, its ~2 GB filesize limit, its nasty habit of corrupting data, and it's baffling default query window behavior all mean that it's not something you can use for serious work.

          If your data set has tens of thousands of rows, Access can handle it just fine. If you've got a million rows, forget about it. If you want your database to scale, forget about it.

          Base is not a toy database, or even a database at all. It's a simple frontend for a proper RDBMS system, like MySQL or PostgreSQL. As such, it looks more spare but is far more powerful and scalable.

          Outlook vs Anything Else: Winner: Anything else. I simply cannot take anything MS says about search or accessibility or convenience seriously until they fix this steaming pile of garbage. As long as it takes minutes to search my ~250 MB Exchange mailbox, and until Outlook can properly handle message threading I simply have nothing positive to say about this turd.

          So where do Google Apps fit in? What they lack in polish and functionality, they make up for in speed, accessibility, and collaboration. They're not there yet, but the thread

          • Have you used Office 2007 very much? It seems like you have some biases from the 95-2003 days. Outlook is beautiful and utilitarian, and search is fast. I've noticed that Powerpoint and especially Word make far less ridiculous default choices for list and table formatting than they used to; it tends to just work the way you wanted it, although it would still be difficult to wrangle into a different look. The Ribbon is kind of gimmicky but perfect for Outlook's compose interface where you only need a few ope
            • For the search to be fast you need to be running Windows Desktop Search Application. For most people that isn't a problem but I've seen some IT departments refuse to install it. It even does Exchange searching client side (assuming your in Cached Exchange mode)

            • by spisska ( 796395 )

              Have you used Office 2007 very much? It seems like you have some biases from the 95-2003 days. Outlook is beautiful and utilitarian, and search is fast.

              I haven't used 2007 at all. We're all XP at work (with no plans to migrate) and I'm Linux at home.

              But does Outlook 2007 do real threading? Many people I correspond with know enough to bottom-post and trim messages. This can make it very frustrating when only incoming mail is arranged in 'conversations' but I need to search sent mail to get to what I said.

              I d

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 13, 2008 @05:43PM (#25753219)

      So the real key to this is using AJAX like everyone else (Google, Yahoo, Slashdot, my employer's internal web apps, my grandmother) instead of some proprietary ActiveX bullshit.

      Way to go, Microsoft!

      The first component to allow client-side scripts to issue HTTP requests (XMLHTTP) was originally written by the Outlook Web Access team. It soon became a part of Internet Explorer 5.0. Renamed XmlHttpRequest and standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium,[1] it has since become one of the cornerstones of the Ajax technology used to build advanced web applications.

      • by lysergic.acid ( 845423 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @10:14PM (#25756335) Homepage

        that's true. XmlHttpRequest is indeed something that Microsoft has done right and that we should thank them for. and i think it's one of the rare examples showing that Microsoft can be a positive contributor to the web community. so it might actually be a good thing that Microsoft is trying to get into mobile web services. since they do not control the mobile browser market and can't just make everyone switch to IE, this will force MS to keep cross-browser compatibility in mind when developing these advanced web apps.

        and as most web developers know, cross browser compatibility is probably one of the most difficult/laborious aspects of web design/development. and the reason for this is largely due to MS's intransigent habit of flouting established open web standards in developing IE. most web browsers are fairly reasonable when it comes to W3C compliance, and it doesn't take much to get a complex layout or application to work across Opera, Firefox, Konquerer, and the majority of common browsers. but IE is always the single browser that requires endless tweaking and inconvenient CSS hacks to get a cross-browser compatible web page.

        now that Microsoft has to deal with cross-browser compatibility issues themselves, perhaps they will finally realize the insanity that is caused by their inconsiderate development philosophy. instead of disregarding open web standards and then wasting thousands of man-hours to work around the inconsistencies in browser implementations that they themselves introduce, maybe--just maybe--they will stop being a poor corporate netizen and work with the W3C rather than against it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jmyers ( 208878 )

      My guess is it will be mostly Silverlight with some light ajax to make it functional where SL is not available. MS will have a major hook in it one way or another.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Microsoft Office Web involves SILVERLIGHT [readwriteweb.com]. SilverLight is patent encumbered and Novell could only make their MoonLight equivalent with deals in Microsoft.

        This is not AJAX other than treating JavaScript as a bootstrap loader for SilverLight's .Net VM. It only works in Firefox and Safari in the same way that Flash or Java Applets do.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Why guess if you can read TFA?

        Office Web will use Microsoft's Silverlight rich Internet plug-in for added functionality such as extra zooming or prettified fonts, though users aren't required to use it, he said.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jhol13 ( 1087781 )

      Way to go, Microsoft!

      Please. They do this only because Google is leading in the game. If they really were after interoperability Sharepoint would properly work in Firefox (and Opera, ...).

      • SharePoint (WSS 3 and MOSS 2007) is perfectly functional in Firefox for me - I use it every day.
      • It will. Due to standards-by-default mode in IE8, they'll have to fix SharePoint to handle that - and they've already said that they will do it. Which will likely mean much better browser support overall.
  • If Microsoft would just make light weight, fast, effective, good software to begin with, none of this would even be a problem for them.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Honestly, we probably would because what else would we do? Occasionally we bitch about Google, Apple, and even, once in awhile LINUX (gasp!). If we didn't bitch about stuff, I don't know that I'd visit /. all that often...
    • Name a useful, good, and professional-document-producing office suite that is light weight, fast, and effective. OO.org is *not* all that. In my experience, it is slower.
      • vim
      • This whole Ms Office versus OO cock-fighting is so stupid.

        I use Linux at home, I couldn't use MS Office even if I wanted. And if I used Windows, I couldn't afford MS Office, so what's the big deal?

        If you don't like OO, get some money, buy MS Office and be happy.

        • I actually do use openoffice, simply because it's free.

          I also use Lotus Notes, because I have to, and dislike it very much.

          I also use Symphony... dislike that very much, too.

          And I use MS Office occasionally because I have to. But the point is, Office is actually a pretty good product and there isn't much substitute for it when it comes to actual professional document stuff... unless you can "get away" with OO.org.

          • Erm, clarification... Symphony is more or less similar to OO which I don't really dislike... but Symphony/Java stuff in general is so slow. Sometimes painfully slow. Especially with spreadsheets, I have found.

    • Honestly, MS Office is faster than OOo, effective and good.

      The problem with MS Office is proprietary formats.

  • Depends.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kellyb9 ( 954229 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @05:34PM (#25753061)

    I think it's time for Google to embrace OpenOffice.org to take on Microsoft head-on, as CW blogger Preston Gralla has argued for and described how to go about it.

    Doesn't this really depend on whether or not Google WANTS to compete head to head with Microsoft. You don't make business decisions out of spite.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Mista2 ( 1093071 )

      But this is how we got Lambourghini 8)
      Lambourghini goes back to Enzo Ferrari with a complaint about his crappy car, and Enzo tells him to "Go back to your Tractor Factory!"
      So now we have the Countach, Diablo, etc. 8) Excellent alternatives to the dominant fast Fiats Ferrari make 8)

    • Clippy: "Hi, it looks like you're writing a letter. Would you like some help with that... using free templates from MyResume.com that provides the best offerings of free CV and job related resumes to give you that edge in your job hunt".

      get the idea why Google would want to compete on an online Office suite?

    • You don't make business decisions out of spite.

      Sure you do. But only if your name is Scott McNealy.

  • by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @05:37PM (#25753099) Homepage Journal
    I don't fully agree with Stallman [cnet.com] regarding cloud computing, but if you add Microsoft's usual strategies to storing all your documents with them (lets take their word that any browser will be able to use their web office) some danger could be there.
    At least with Google's one i can download the docs in OpenOffice/Word/RTF/HTML format, thats the other "compatibility" that MS Web Office should provide too.
    • by TheModelEskimo ( 968202 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @05:50PM (#25753323)
      I agree. The risks are bad enough with Google that I've decided to migrate away from Google services. I'm steering my business into locally-developed and locally-hosted services, since many of my (admittedly hippie, but rich hippie) clients have started to notice that gigantic chunks of their business information can end up somewhere in a large "fog" of data centers. I say fog because "cloud" sounds too optimistic and doesn't do the obscuring nature of the whole thing justice.
    • I would agree it is important to be able for you to get your own data, This is an issue the companies policy not the Cloud Computing Model or the SaaS model, and msny SaaS companies do allow you to have the data. I didn't see when I skimmed the article about anything saying you can't get your own copy of the data. Otherwise Office Online would be useless. Like back in the 80's where they sold computers and said how good they would be for kids except they didn't have a printer attachment so they couldn't giv

    • by Mista2 ( 1093071 )

      I just wonder what feature won't be available in the other browsers.
      I'm still waiting for a good Linux or OS X implimentation of the MS Communicator client.

  • by qoncept ( 599709 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @05:39PM (#25753153) Homepage
    "I think it's time for Google to embrace OpenOffice.org to take on Microsoft head-on, as CW blogger Preston Gralla has argued for and described how to go about it."

    That would be a great idea, if your goal is to hurt Microsoft's sales rather than high quality office software. This is a good example of how two faced people can be. The leg the open source community stands on is improving the offerings in specific types of software, yet somehow lose sight of it, thinking that eliminating an option is in everyone's best interest.
  • Let me just say (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Before the bashing continues. That this is great news! On inital inspection Microsoft is doing what the market is asking for. If this changes in the future... well we shall see. But personally based on all of the uphevals that have been occuring I am going to trust Microsoft again and see how this pans out. Like it or not Office is a great office suite and since it moved to the ribbon bar is even better.

    BTW No I am not a Microsoft fanboy, I use whatever tool is appropiate and frankly MSWord and Excel are br

    • If you think, Microsoft is planning to keep this compatibility forever, you don't know them very well...

      might i remember you to the fact, that microsoft released office:mac only for one reason: to stop supporting macs someday to force the users to buy windows?
      http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/05/2129253 [slashdot.org]
    • you wrote:

      >BTW No I am not a Microsoft fanboy, I
      >use whatever tool is appropiate and
      >frankly MSWord and Excel are brilliant
      >pieces of software.

          Word is a "brilliant" piece of software? It's a buggy unstable POS.

                  Brett

    • I am going to trust Microsoft again

      Famous last words...

  • Just... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by comm2k ( 961394 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @05:44PM (#25753227)
    as Outlook Web Access works in non-IE browsers..?! There is a reason you can select a 'Premium' version with IE and not with FF/Safari etc.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Sorry Microsoft. You can the offer openid. You can provide specs to samba and mono. You can deliver free cross platform software (Office Live).

    But you'll never win slashdot's heart. Slashdot permanently hates you. Stop trying. Its a double-standard-irrational-childish-stupid kinda hate, but its double-standard-irrational-childish-stupid hate regardless.

    Now, if Google did this same thing, well, they'd be treated like a god. Like when Google offered OpenID and they were applaused -- the day after You g

    • While google has the potential to be just as evil, they at least really mean cross-platform. If their past history of cross-platform compatibility can be used as a guide -- OWA for example -- they mean "Designed for IE, will provide some functionality in other browsers so we can call it cross-platform." Recent versions of OWA have actually *reduced* cross-platform compatibility from what was a pretty usable webmail client to something that won't even let you edit Exchange filtering rules unless you're on MS

    • As Microsoft continues to prepare for the 2009 2010 launch of Windows 7, it today issued a plea through its network of objective opinion-shapers: Don't let the journalists near it. [today.com]

      "We understand that many journalists use Macs," said CNet marketing marketer Don Reisinger. "This means they necessarily suckle at the Satanic rear passage of Steve Jobs. We cannot countenance their bias. Journalists are responsible for all those signs outside computer shops offering to replace Vista with XP. When was the last t

  • Competition := good (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MicklePickle ( 220905 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @05:54PM (#25753377) Homepage

    This is a classic example of why we should have competition. It only takes a bit of competition thrown in and suddenly our Linux platform is supported. Consumer lock-in is great for business but bad for consumers.
    I wonder just how long this platform embracing will last though?

    • I wonder just how long this platform embracing will last though?

      I believe embracing is the first part of a three-step process. Not sure how the other two will pan out in this regard.

    • Google isn't successful because of cross-platform, cross-browser goodness. They're successful because their products "just work". Much like Apple, in a sense.

      Can Microsoft do that? Live Search eventually got there, but almost a decade late to the party. Let's see what the office team can do being only a few years late.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Consumer lock-in is great for business but bad for consumers.

      I think you mean:
      Vendor lock-in is great for one business but bad for everyone else (including all other business)

  • by morgauo ( 1303341 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @06:14PM (#25753661)

    Ok,I'm a pretty big geek.

    Being able to access my stuff wherever I go has been my goal for a long time. When I was in college (before cheap USB sticks) I used to have a business card CD for my wallet with a java based ssh client (putty wasn't around yet) and a vncviewer executable. This way I could reach my stuff from the lab computers or anywhere else without installing anything. Realizing that wallet CDs suck I moved on to a web based solution. (try finding a wallet they actually fit in and then try to carry it everywhere without breaking it!) I had a javascript ssh client (mindterm) and a javascript vnc client on a webpage hosted from my machine. This worked... ok.... for the time.

    My point is I get it... I get what is so convenient about cloud computing. but... is it really a good idea for allowing the placing of ones documents on someone else's machine (Mickeysoft, Google, etc...) become so commonplace? I realize 90% of what most people's data is going to be uninteresting and not worth getting concerned about. But... if what happens to the 10% of data that truly is sensative when erveryone's in the mindset of just use Google or just use Microsoft? IT guys/gals, do you really think the business suites in your company are going to even understand the differenct between working on a document hosted at some other company vs. running an office suite localy? Most will only know that this is what is easy, this is what they know, this is what their peers are using... For that matter, even people who do understand the difference, once they have been using the cloud for the unimportant data, are they even going to think about it or will it be second nature?

    So... inaviteable as cloud computing seems to be, maybe it's time for an OSS web based Office Suite. Something that a company can install on it's own ssl encrypted web server, something that more adventurous home users can install in their own homes and use along with dynamic dns.

    Now somebody else go write it :-)

    • by jmyers ( 208878 )

      Cloud computing is fine for the typical Joe 6 pack user. The fact is most people are not competent enough to maintain their own internet connected computer and keep it secure.

      Having your documents stored on a computer that is not secure is just as bad or worse that letting Google or MS store your documents. Power users and businesses can and will handle their own document storage.

  • Yeah right (Score:4, Insightful)

    by und0 ( 928711 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @06:16PM (#25753699)
    The last time they said the same thing for DirectX...
    • When did they ever say that DirectX would work on Mac and Linux?

      As for Silverlight, they've already paid to help Mono developers make Moonlight and said they'd offer free support to web developers trying to get Moonlight/Linux to work with their web site.

  • by z0ink ( 572154 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @06:20PM (#25753763)
    How is this even newsworthy? So ... Microsoft gets extra credit for doing what _should_ be done with web applications? Is it that or are we all just impressed it's not Silverlight w/ DRM and a paperclip that wants to spy on you and send all your personal details back to Redmond.
    • a paperclip that wants to spy on you and send all your personal details back to Redmond.

      That's the beauty of cloud computing, your personal details won't have to be send back to Redmond, they will be stored there from the very beginning.

  • let's see it first (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @06:22PM (#25753795) Homepage Journal

    Before anyone tells Google that the sky is falling, let's see MS new vaporware in a real-life test first, shall we?

    It wouldn't be the first time that they promise revolution, and deliver either nothing at all or a weak me-too product. So let's wait what it's really like. Complex applications are difficult to move to the web, and a "light" version often lacks the exact features that a good fraction of the users care about.

  • by starfishsystems ( 834319 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @06:22PM (#25753799) Homepage
    Pardon me for injecting a note of caution.

    See, I seem to vaguely recall a few hundred previous occasions in which Microsoft played this same game. It's amazing to me that anyone would still fall for it.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by blueZ3 ( 744446 )

      Right.

      First they embraced the Web browser, and I didn't say anything, because it didn't affect me

      Then they extended the web browser with ActiveX, and I didn't say anything, because it didn't affect me

      Once they got to the extinguish phase, there was no one left to complain

  • Is it the same do as in "I'm doing your daughter"?

    • by hAckz0r ( 989977 )
      Actually I think they just left out a word in that title that is more or less implied with any typical Microsoft double speak. Try reading it like this and it may just sound a little more familiar to your ears, coming from Microsoft and all that:

      Microsoft's Office Web Will Do [in] iPhone, Linux, Mac...

      Of course, we've all heard that line before...

      Personally I'll believe Microsoft will be fair to other web browsers when I see it. My wife is pissed at Microsoft because of all the headaches she has had recently using Firefox 3.0 with msn hotmail. Not only does i

  • by Vexorian ( 959249 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @07:06PM (#25754391)
    I RTFA! The whole conclusion comes from saying that it will work in Safari and Firefox... News flash! Even since this thing was announced, we knew MS will use silverlight for this... So, yes, it will run in Safari and Firefox, just through using a plugin, but you'll need .net for this moronity... In other words, that it works in Firefox means nothing, ah and we get to see silverlight in work as a replacement for what IE was meant for initially, to make windows a requirement to browse the web.

    Moonlight? yeah right... Assuming MS doesn't add Silverlight-only stuff as a requirement for their online office stuff, they will eventually do once it is famous enough. Thanks Miguel...

    Google apps run in anything that can run javascript, does not require you to install .net or violate MS' patents and I am quite sure it will be more feature-complete and better implemented, this web stuff is definitely not MS' strength, they are still on that ridiculous windows-only obsession...

  • > The key to this cross platform-friendliness: Office Web will run in Firefox and Safari browsers, in addition to IE

    Yeah right. We have heard THAT before, haven't we? This is coming from the same company that forced Hotmail users to use the new "Live" version, which complains about Firefox every time you access it and doesn't allow Linux users to even send or reply to messages until they change the vendor ident string!!!! And they claimed THAT was supposed to work. Even yesterday it is still broken,

  • This would provide some relief to Mac users who lost the ability to run VBA macros in Office 2008.
  • Lies, all lies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jekler ( 626699 ) on Thursday November 13, 2008 @11:04PM (#25756759)
    Anything Microsoft creates will not work with iPhone/Mac/Linux/etc. They will always sabotage the other systems whenever possible. Even if it works on release, an update will break it. Listening to anything Microsoft says is like believing an abusive spouse won't hit you again.
    • You mean MS Office is Never going to run on OpenBSD/Sparc64 kit? I'm deeply shocked. I put my whole organisations future on hold because of MS's promise.

      Should I really go back to OpenOffice, and being able to edit tables reliably? Or should I move to Visagra/MS Office 2007, and a life of viruses and screen candy? Help me! I just can't decide for myself!

  • In yet another breathtaking installment of Krang's Happy BS Hour, Frankestein and co. seek to convince a weary world that they will make their lives easier. Except, of course, they have to contend with their greatest and most fiendishly unbeatable arch-enemy, their own track record.

    I've now had to delete my Exchange profile in Entourage and rebuild the MS database a dozen times. In the interim, I've "sent" updates to meetings that were never touched, lost meetings I haven't even so much as hovered over sinc

Always leave room to add an explanation if it doesn't work out.

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