Microsoft Office for the iPad event is all about Azure

The recent flurry of news about Microsoft Office (MSO) being released for the iPad finally puts to rest several years of rumors and speculation which started by the now defunct paper The Daily ( @maryjofoley ).  The event was in San Francisco was well run by MS CEO Satya Nadella who will bear watching to see how well he changes the Microsoft ecosystem.  The focus of the event was not on the everyday use of MS Office but of the Enterprise ecosystem which Microsoft dominates in the deployment.

Nadella identified three constituent groups of Users, Developers and IT Pros.  The users are not general users but those who with access to a license from their employer.  This will likely be larger business entities which can justify the cost of the licensing agreement.  Azure really was as much a part of the whole event as the MSO for iPad.  Since you can only view the items without a Office 365 license the whole suite is only marginally useful for the small business and home user.   They buy MSO when they purchase the computer and since they do not buy it again until they replace the device.  They generally want to buy the software and not be obligated for a recurring annual expense especially if they keep the computer for 5 to 10 years.  If you think that this is a stretch then remember how many XP machines with Office 2003 are still in use.  The dissapointment that is MSO for the iPad is in stark contrast to the truly significant update yesterday - MSO Mobile for the iPhone.

The real news for the average user is that once both the OneDrive and MSO Mobile are installed it is possible to edit MSO documents on the iPhone.  A useful tool for those on the go when dealing with documents that may be as diverse as the kid's homework, church and civic organizations or just the shopping list with no required Office 365 license.  A loophole but a very useful one.  The MSO mobile will install and load on an iPad. 

The summary of this event is the fact that MSO for iPad is a non event for most home and small business users who are not pay the annual subscription fee.  These users will find the MSO for iPhone a help. Corporate users will gain a whole level of productivity by being able to work cross device with tie ins from the Azure infrastructure.  The real winners are the IT Pros who will have a new level of control and flexibility with Azure which I hope to post on in the future.