Bearing the rather clunky name of “Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers”, the app does require a subscription to Microsoft’s cloud service, but the fundamentals are present: you can use it to access, view and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents on an iPad or iPhone — although the app is optimized for the iPhone 5, so don’t expect a tablet-friendly experience.

According to the product blurb:

“Documents look like the originals, thanks to support for charts, animations, SmartArt graphics and shapes. When you make quick edits or add comments to a document, the formatting and content remain intact.”

The app can be used on Office documents received as email attachments, or those stored on SkyDrive, SkyDrive Pro or SharePoint. If your desktop Office 2013 is connected to Microsoft’s cloud, you can also pull up documents that were recently viewed there, from your mobile device.

It is possible to edit documents while offline. The app is compatible with iPhone 4 and up, and with the 3rd generation iPad and up (and yes, with the iPad mini too). Devices have to run iOS 6.1 or later.

It doesn’t seem the rollout is global just yet, though. My iPad mini, which is set to the U.K. App Store, isn’t seeing it at the time of writing. No sign of an Android version, either.

UPDATE (5am PT): Microsoft has now published a blog post explaining the functionality in greater detail.

NOTE: This article originally bore the headline “Microsoft quietly pushes out Office for iPhone and iPad”. A few minutes after posting the “… and iPad” was excised because, while the app will work on iPads, it’s not optimized for them.

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AllThingsD reported Tuesday that Microsoft wants to bring its productivity suite to Apple’s App Store, but it doesn’t care for Apple’s standard 30 percent revenue sharing model:

[T]he companies are at loggerheads not over the 30 percent commission Apple asks of storage upgrade sales made through SkyDrive, but over applying that same commission to Office 365 subscriptions sold through Microsoft Office for iOS, which is expected to launch sometime next year.

Microsoft’s Office apps for iOS are said to be free, but Office 365 will be one of the key components that makes the apps useful. “On first launch, a Microsoft account will provide access to the basic viewing functionality in the apps. Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents will all be supported, and edit functionality can be enabled with an Office 365 subscription,” the Verge reported last month.

So, if this is still the case, Apple won’t get a cut from the app itself because it’s free. It’s the subscriptions — to Office 365 and/or SkyDrive — where Microsoft will be making money.

Microsoft is apparently trying to get Apple to take less than 30 percent of that subscription fee. Apple takes 30 percent of all app, content and subscription sales made through its App Store, whether it’s magazines, books, newspapers, music, games or services, like Office365, which is Microsoft’s cloud-based productivity suite. The report indicates Apple is “not at all willing to negotiate” on this. (This explains why someone at Microsoft went public with at least part of the dispute; a possible negotiating tactic.)

In any case, it’s not clear why Apple would bend on this, especially now that the scenario is public. If the company starts making exceptions for anyone it probably won’t be long before more developers try turning the iOS app approval process into a bartering system.

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I’m certainly not trying to defend Nielsen’s study, nor the experiences of the dozen participants. In fact, I’ve struggled with the new operating system on a Surface RT review unit and I have 15 years of hands-on I.T. experience in Fortune 100 companies that relied heavily on Windows. Plus I have some previous with experience Windows Phone, which has used a similar interface to that of Windows 8 since 2010. But Windows 8 is more than tiles and touch targets.

There’s a learning curve

I couldn’t figure out how to share a web page, for example, but the function is there; thanks to my podcast co-host, Matthew Miller, I learned that the Charms section has a context-aware Share feature. Closing applications on Surface RT stumped me as well, but then I found out how to do it: While in an application, swipe down from the top of the screen to the bottom and the app will close. Well, it’s supposed to, anyway. Russell Holly at Geek.com notes that some apps are still running in the Task Manager even after closing them in this fashion.

So part of the issues then, could be due to a learning curve; not from poor design. That’s certainly a problem, but one that can be corrected through education on Microsoft’s part.

Microsoft’s multiple personality disorder

Nielsen is spot on when it comes to the touch-friendly tile user interface and the old desktop mode, however:

Unfortunately, having two environments on a single device is a prescription for usability problems for several reasons:

• Users have to learn and remember where to go for which features.
• When running web browsers in both device areas, users will only see (and be reminded of) a subset of their open web pages at any given time.
• Switching between environments increases the interaction cost of using multiple features.
• The two environments work differently, making for an inconsistent user experience.

While Windows 8 is probably the biggest break from Microsoft’s past operating systems, it’s not a complete break. Support for a desktop mode is a by-product of legacy design and, to me, represents the largest missed opportunity for Windows 8 tablets. The old Desktop mode is really there for one reason only: Microsoft Office. Instead of creating a Desktop mode for the productivity suite, Microsoft should have created a productivity suite for the touch-friendly environment. It’s as if it was easier for Microsoft to simply cram Office on tablets in a special mode rather than redesign it for effective use on mobile devices. And we know the latter can be done: Look at QuickOffice, iWorks or any number of productivity apps that work well on touch devices.

The world isn’t flat, but icons can be

I don’t quite agree with Nielsen when it comes to his criticism of the flat icons in Windows 8. I find that these fit in well with the tile interface and reduce the amount of flashiness found in icons on other systems. Utilitarian? Perhaps, but isn’t that what a section of choices for device settings is? Here’s a look at what Nielsen is complaining about, in particular.

He notes that few users actually tapped the “Change PC settings” link when tasked to change the background wallpaper in Windows 8; they thought those words were a label. Given that they were using a Surface RT tablet, perhaps the link should be “Change device settings” but this is easily fixable in a software update. The fact is — and it bears repeating — this is a new platform and there’s a learning curve involved, just as there has been for iOS and Android devices.

Scaling mobile up or bringing desktop down?

Getting back to the core issue is the approach that Microsoft has taken: One that keeps its legacy alive with a desktop version of Office. Here, I agree with Nielsen when he says:

The underlying problem is the idea of recycling a single software UI for two very different classes of hardware devices. It would have been much better to have two different designs: one for mobile and tablets, and one for the PC. I understand why Microsoft likes the marketing message of “One Windows, Everywhere.” But this strategy is wrong for users.

Looking to Apple, I see a different, so far, more successful, approach when it comes to mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Much of the core of iOS and OS X is shared, but the interfaces are different: The former is designed solely for touch while the latter is solely for mouse and keyboard. While some apps are similar — think iPhone, iMovie and the iWorks suite — they’re designed to work effectively on their respective form factors. In some sense, Apple is scaling up from mobile as it brings more mobile user interface tweaks and services to the desktop.

Microsoft on the other hand, is still doing what it has done for a dozen years with its Tablet PC platform: Scaling the desktop down. Granted, it’s doing far less of that than ever before as Windows 8 is the best version for touch devices yet. But that doggone Desktop is still there and once you get there, touch becomes an exercise in frustration and you revert to the keyboard and touchpad on a Surface.

I like Nielsen’s idea of one platform dedicated solely to phones and tablets. Essentially because of the design choice Microsoft made by lumping the OS for tablets and PCs together, I find that the Surface RT device competes more against other Windows laptops than Apple’s iPad or Android tablets. In my mind, that’s the biggest issue here; not how flat the icons are or the learning curve for Microsoft’s new platform.

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Ballmer has said that he intends to stay put till 2017, something that may have contributed to stress between him and the ambitious Sinofsky. Of course the board may have other ideas, but so far — other than not awarding full bonuses for the CEO last year — Microsoft’s board seems to support Ballmer.

Sinofsky, despite his control freaky nature, was considered a frontrunner, and at least one insider — the widely read anonymous blogger MiniMicrosoft – thinks Sinofsky’s departure may actually help his odds of achieving the top spot. He wrote:

“… I don’t believe his departure rules him out at all for Microsoft CEO. In fact, I think if he stays in tech and becomes CEO of another company it makes him an even more obvious choice to come back to Microsoft as its leader.”

Microsoft International president Jean-Philippe Courtois

Anything’s possible but personally, I’ve felt for some time that Satya Nadella, president of the company’s Server & Tools group, is — or should be — on the shortest list of possible CEOs. He has technical chops and — get this — he has people skills.

One insider agrees on that pick but also said COO Kevin Turner has to be considered.  The Wal-Mart veteran who joined Microsoft a few years ago “delivers the numbers and numbers are important,”  he said. Turner’s retail experience might come in handy as Microsoft continues to roll out its own stores and offer Microsoft-branded hardware. Panos Panay, Microsoft’s hardware guy who wowed the crowds at the recent Surface announcement is also an up-and-comer.

Another dark horse is  Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International.

Ballmer — and whomever is his successor — will have to foster much better cooperation across the famously fractious groups at Microsoft. A decade ago when I dealt with the company daily, the best way to suss out negative stories about Windows was to call someone on the Office team. And vice versa. Sinofsky was famous for driving his own groups hard, and delivering product on time or close to it. He was not at all good with dealing with dependencies between his group and others.

“He was awful working on things when he didn’t have control,” said one insider. Bob Muglia, the former server and tools chief, and Sinofsky, who led Office at the time, couldn’t abide each other, several sources said.

Normally, I don’t pay too much attention to verbiage in press statements about executive departures, but in this case the wording is telling. (CNET has the text of Ballmer’s memo to employees here.) In the release Ballmer says:

“We’ve built an incredible foundation with new releases of Microsoft Office, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Microsoft Surface, Windows Server 2012 and ‘Halo 4,’ and great integration of services such as Bing, Skype and Xbox across all our products. To continue this success it is imperative that we continue to drive alignment across all Microsoft teams, and have more integrated and rapid development cycles for our offerings.”

Driving that sort of alignment was not in Sinofsky’s wheelhouse. But it will have to be a strength of Microsoft’s next CEO, whoever that may be.

Check out the video below of Derrick Harris’s Structure interview of Satya Nadella.

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The news was reported by AllThingsD‘s Ina Fried. Sinofsky’s role will be taken over by — get this — two women. Tami Reller who will take on the business side of Windows and Julie Larson-Green will direct Windows software and hardware engineering, according to a Microsoft statement. Larson-Green had worked with Sinofsky for some time.

For years Sinofsky headed development of Office, Microsoft’s juggernaut desktop productivity suite. His success there led to him taking over Windows after the Vista debacle.

Jeff Raikes, then the Office guy at Microsoft, has lauded Sinofsky to me repeatedly over the years. Sinofsky, he said, was the guy who delivered, who made the trains run on time.

Having said all that, Sinofsky was not particularly known for working well with others. Microsoft sources said he did not get along well with Ray Ozzie, who was hand picked by company co-founder Bill Gates to take over as the company’s chief software architect when Gates stepped back from that role. Despite those wrinkles, and because of his success in delivering product, some still considered Sinofsky a likely successor to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.  In the past year or so, there has reportedly been tension between the two Steves. That may have led to today’s rather abrupt departure.

Last year, Robert Muglia, the respected president of Microsoft’s  Server and Tools group left after a difference of opinion over strategy with Ballmer, but in that case, Muglia stayed on for several months to ease the transition. There was no such arrangement in Sinofksy’s case.

In a statement, Sinofsky said:

“It is impossible to count the blessings I have received over my years at Microsoft. I am humbled by the professionalism and generosity of everyone I have had the good fortune to work with at this awesome company.”

Feature photo courtesy of Flickr user Microsoft Sweden

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The app will be free, but will require a Microsoft account. For added services though, you may need a subscription. According to the report: “On first launch, a Microsoft account will provide access to the basic viewing functionality in the apps. Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents will all be supported, and edit functionality can be enabled with an Office 365 subscription.”

It’s not a secret that Microsoft is working on bringing the software to mobile devices. It’s the timing that the company is keeping under wraps. The report says “early 2013″ is when we’ll finally be able to download it for Android and iOS. That tracks with what a Microsoft product manager in the Czech Republic told employees last month, when he said Office for a variety of mobile devices would arrive in March 2013. Microsoft’s corporate PR department immediately refuted the dates, however.

Still, is next year too late? A year ago all the business folks getting iPads at work would have clamored for a mobile version of Office. But in its absence, many have figured out that there are other mobile word-processing apps out there. In fact, there are so many alternatives now that it’s easy to wonder how much of an impact an Office launch will have — whenever it finally debuts.

And what about Microsoft’s own tablet? Office for iOS in particular could negatively impact the company’s own Surface RT tablet — one of the key advantages is that it comes with Office pre-installed. It’s possible that Microsoft could hold back some features for the iOS (and Android) apps in order to lend its own tablet some advantage.

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The release date target came from a presentation in the Czech Republic on Wednesday by a Microsoft product manager. The platform details are from a press release read and translated by The Verge. According to the document, “In addition to Windows, Office will be also available on other operating systems, Windows Phone, Windows RT, Mac OS, Android, iOS and Symbian.” Web versions of the apps are also reportedly on their way.

The last two years in a row Apple has introduced a new iPad at the beginning of March, with availability following a few weeks later. So it’s not a terrible bet the company will keep on the same schedule next year. While Microsoft has its own tablet on deck for introduction later this month, Apple is still the king of tablets. And as iPads continue to infiltrate cubicles and executive office suites, productivity apps have been extremely popular on the platform. Office has long been a highly anticipated app for iPad, and has been rumored to be arriving “soon” for at least a year.

But will Microsoft have missed capitalizing on an iOS version of Office by next year? Apple has already released its own iWork suite, with iOS apps like Pages, Numbers and Keynote that my obviate the need for a mobile version of Office for some. Plus, plenty of other third-party developers have filled in the blanks, releasing hundreds of productivity apps for the iPad since its original launch in 2010.

Update: Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw threw cold water on the information, saying via Twitter: “The information shared by our Czech Republic subsidiary is not accurate. We have nothing further to share.”

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1: Yahoo deal disappoints. The search revenue Yahoo derived from a Microsoft partnership last quarter again fell short of its threshold. Under terms of that three-year old deal, Yahoo replaced its own search engine with Microsoft Bing and Microsoft pays Yahoo a fee based on a traffic generated on Yahoo’s network. Asked if Yahoo had an “out” on this deal, Microsoft CFO Peter Klein did not answer, saying only that Microsoft will “continue to drive those gains which will benefit both parties of the partnership.” As SearchEngineLand’s Danny Sullivan notes, it’s possible that Yahoo, now led by former Google exec Marissa Mayer, could look to tighten ties with Google instead.

2: Lync is hot.   What was once called Microsoft Office Unified Communications Server is hot, hot, hot, according to Klein. Revenue for this, the latest Microsoft Office server SKU which melds voice, email and instant messaging, was up 45 percent for the quarter. “We think unified communications is a really big market opportunity for us ..  we are really starting to see it with this version of Lync, and what we are doing going forward.”

3: Light cloud talk.  There was nary a question about cloud on the call and CFO Klein quickly touched on Windows Azure in his remarks despite Azure representing a good segment of Microsoft’s future. The Redmond giant is clearly banking big on Windows Azure as it tries to build its cloud computing credibility and navigate the tricky transition from its huge reliance on on-premises, client-server software. Klein said Windows Azure in the quarter saw “significant customer and partner wins, and we added roughly 800 new enterprise  customers.”

4: Server and tools sales remain robust.  Revenue for this group was up 13 percent year over year and Microsoft especially touted continued SQL Server adoption — revenue from that database was up $500M year over year. More customers are moving to multi-year server license agreements versus one-off “transactional” license sales.  Microsoft wants customers to sign up for these multi-year deals because they bring repeatable, predictable revenue. Those multiyear licenses should account for 60 percent of the division’s revenue next year, the company said.

5: Wait till next quarter(s). Klein repeatedly cited big product launches — especially Windows 8 and the latest Office — to come later this year. (Windows 8 has been promised for late October. (Timing on Windows 8 Phone was less clear although folks expect Windows 8 Phone devices to hit the shelves in November — just in time for Christmas.) “Enthusiasm is building for the coming year that includes important releases from Windows, Windows Phone, Office and Windows Server,” Klein said.

In other words, if you don’t like what you see from Microsoft this quarter, wait one more (or maybe two.)

Some rights reserved by Amit Chattopadhyay

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Microsoft appears reluctant to extend its productivity powerhouse Office to other mobile platforms before it can cut the software’s teeth in its own Windows 8 ecosystem. Google may be looking to take advantage of Microsoft’s hesitance, filling in the office hole in Android and iOS with its own productivity suite before Microsoft can pounce.

In a press release, Google said the Quickoffice team would help it achieve success with Google Apps on mobile platforms:

Today, consumers, businesses and schools use Google Apps to get stuff done from anywhere, with anyone and on any device. Quickoffice has an established track record of enabling seamless interoperability with popular file formats, and we’ll be working on bringing their powerful technology to our Apps product suite.

Quickoffice has mobile file-sharing apps that allow users to create, edit and view Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents on their phones. Quickoffice has apps for the iPhone, iPad, Android, as well as webOS and Symbian operating systems.

Quickoffice announced their acquisition by Google in a press release today:

When we embarked on our mission to become the world leader in office productivity, we knew we were taking on a huge challenge. We worked very hard to build Quickoffice as a user friendly, seamless and yet powerful way to view, edit, sync and share documents anywhere, anytime. It’s been a very humbling experience to see this vision embraced by our users. Now, we are ushering in a new chapter with Google. By combining the magic of Google’s intuitive solutions with Quickoffice’s powerful products, our shared vision for anytime, anywhere productivity can only grow.

Quickoffice struck deals to have its apps pre-loaded on Android phones and tablets, and recently saw a jump in users corresponding to sales of the Kindle Fire, GigaOm’s Ryan Kim reported last year. The company reports that its product has been downloaded on 300 million devices so far in 180 countries.

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On the one hand, Microsoft has a vested interest in making Office ubiquitous — it is by far the dominant desktop productivity suite and is a cash cow for the company. On the other, Microsoft hopes to use Office to bolster its thus-far weak smartphone and tablet story. In that segment it wants to push Windows 8 as a strong competitor to Apple’s iOS and Android, and Office has always been the killer app (or apps) for Windows. Note: Microsoft has never officially acknowledged any Office-for-iPad or Android plans, and even denied such plans, but leaks have been fast and furious over the past few months. The conventional wisdom is that Microsoft ignores the iPad at its own peril and so must address it with Office in some form.

According to Friday’s TechTarget report:

Initially, Microsoft planned to introduce versions of Office 15 for all three platforms. But according to sources familiar with the company’s strategy, Microsoft will now ship the long-awaited application suite sometime in October for Windows devices, most notably the upcoming versions of Windows Phone, and hold off on selling Office for iOS and Android devices until next spring.

The debate over whether Microsoft should or should not field Office on the hot-selling iPad, shows the line Microsoft must tread. At a time when it’s trying to show Windows Azure as a more cross-platform cloud that will store and manage everyone’s data — regardless of the endpoints — the fact remains that the company sees Office as its cash cow and it also knows that it has a ton of ground to make up in mobile devices and smartphones where it will push Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 hard against iOS and Android.

Withholding Office from iPad: Who gets hurt?

Tier 1 analyst Carl Brooks said this Windows first strategy is nutty in this day and age. “Microsoft wants to own user data in Office across the clients and in the cloud obviously. But this is a fight Apple’ s going to win on its own platform,” he said. “Microsoft can obviously deliver a better experience on Windows devices, but waiting too long or restricting Office to Windows would be suicide. I can already read .docs and .ppts on my iPhone and it gets easier all the time,” he said.

The better tack would be for Microsoft to give all mobile users a very cheap Office client and use that to woo them, he said. “If they think they can sell $100 Office licenses to iPad and tablet users, they’re bananas.”

There are also other third-party ways from IonGrid, OnLive and CloudOn to deliver Office to iPads.

David Linthicum, CTO and co-founder of Blue Mountain Labs, said by holding back on Office, Microsoft could hurt both its cloud and its Office story by giving people a reason to check out Google Docs or Zoho or another cloud-based productivity suite that competes with Office 365, Microsoft’s cloud-based Office implementation.

“This just shows Microsoft is up to its old tricks,” he said, “making sure that they  promote their platform in any way they can. However, not supporting popular devices could lead many enterprises to phase out Office and thus Windows. Many will opt for existing cloud-delivered Office productivity tools,” he said.

One thing is for sure, while Microsoft has a better tablet and smartphone story in its upcoming Windows 8, moves like this could handicap its overall cloud and applications strategy.

Feature photo courtesy of Flickr user Sean MacEntee

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