Microsoft Office Must Evolve to Remain Successful - silvawint1952

Place has been a wildly successful product for Microsoft, but its continued potency is far from secure as package moves to the taint and employees bring their own tablets and smartphones into work.

Along Mon, when Microsoft is expected to unwrap the next version of Part at a press issue headlined by CEO Steve Ballmer, it will get over clearer whether the party is propelling the retinue forward for continued winner or setting it up for failure. (Follow PCWorld's live coverage here.)

The bear on of the latter on Microsoft as a unimpaired would be catastrophic, since the ubiquitous rooms of productivity applications is one the biggest profit engines for the keep company.

Microsoft's To-Do Inclination

To scramble back competitors care Google Apps, Office must acquire into an easier to use, tablet- and smartphone-friendly intersection, and one that doesn't punish customers who access IT via the cloud with big feature gaps and complicated setups.

Specifically, Microsoft must master its reticence to make an Office version for iPads and Android tablets. And it must beef up Office 365, its year-old sully suite that includes online versions of Office, Lync, SharePoint, and Switch over.

These aren't gradual moves for Microsoft, in part because they risk poignant the gross revenue and margins of what has been a Johnny Cash overawe product.

However, Microsoft has indicated that it intends to be bold with this revolutionary translation of the suite, which wish be known as Office 2022, according to people associate with the plans.

When it announced a limited "Technical Preview" of the new version in January, under the code-name Office 15, Microsoft said the upgrade would evolve not only the suite's productivity applications like Wor, Surpass and PowerPoint, but besides Office 365 and the on-premise versions of collaboration and communications products suchlike Exchange, Lync, and SharePoint. The refresh would extend not only to PC interfaces, but also to tablets and smartphones.

Above all, Microsoft must emphasize ease of role and avoid the shock many long-time users got when Spot 2022 came out and they found that the placement of menus and commands had been significantly altered.

"In the last version of Office, Microsoft swapped the gas pedal bike and the break pedal," said analyst Rebecca Wettemann of Nucleus Research.

It now has an opportunity to organize the suite's myriad functions in the substance abuser interface in some respects that is friendlier to users.

"For a age, with to each one new version, Microsoft has focused on bountiful Office a gazillion new features, which helps with completeness only not serviceableness," aforesaid Bozo Crease, a Gartner analyst.

"Microsoft doesn't need to remove features, nor speechless downbound the product — exactly don't assault users with each these features as it has historically done," he said.

Wanted: New Platform Financial support

Also critical analysis and long overdue is a version of Office for Android and iOS smartphones and tablets.

In particular, an Office version for the iPad can't wait, because the tablet has become a workplace joyride for many people who bought IT initially for personal use and all over heavenward bringing it to the office too. "Microsoft needs to do this," said industry psychoanalyst Michael Osterman, from Osterman Research.

Osterman aforesaid he wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft continued to balk at porting Office to iOS, especially nowadays that IT plans to spillage its have tablet, called Surface, which will run its new Windows 8 operating system with its new Metro user interface studied for touch devices like tablets. Even so, this would constitute a costly misunderstanding, he said.

The "bring your own device" (BYOD) trend is sweeping enterprises, and end users are clamoring for the ability to use products like Business office and SharePoint from their mobile device of choice, Creese said.

"If Microsoft pooh-poohs that reality and says it'll exclusively put Office on Windows 8 tablets, that means they sensible don't get it," Creese aforesaid.

How Microsoft optimizes its applications for the various nomadic devices is a large order that will take Re-thinking their purpose and use in smartphones, touch sensation-only tablets and hybrid devices that have both touch screens and mice/keyboards.

It might mean oblation some applications via transportable browsers that support HTML5, while delivering others as platform-specific apps.

"The form factor influences what you fanny and await to do with the applications," aforementioned Philipp Karcher, a Forrester Research analyst.

Microsoft needs to be deliberate therein summons, because a half-baked offer could harm the Office brand and flunk to live up to the expectations populate have for the suite, he said.

And Microsoft needs to figure that out quickly, because users want the option to employ the applications on a variety of devices now, Kris said.

"The 'Windows first' days, especially in ambulatory devices, are absolutely over," helium aforesaid. "Microsoft may wish it other, only that's non how people are impermanent."

Karcher concurs. "At that place's no query that mobile devices are exploding in adoption and mass want to see what is Microsoft's story for getting Office on those devices," he said.

Tidy the Obnubilate

Another antecedence should be to beef up the features in Post 365, so users Don't feel that to take reward of the cloud fashion mode they have to via media on functionality.

Full parity between the on-premise versions of Office, Lync, SharePoint, and Exchange and their online counterparts Crataegus oxycantha not equal possible, but there is an chance to narrow the functionality crack that exists nowadays, Osterman said.

"Microsoft should align both many closely," he same.

The troupe can besides doh more to simplify lifetime for IT administrators who have to deal users on both Office 365 and the on-assumption versions of its components, Karcher aforesaid.

"I'm sure Microsoft will make the management of that deployment easier for Information technology," he said.

Ultimately, the dubiousness will be whether Office 2022 offers consumers and enterprises enough compelling reasons to expend the cause and money on upgrading.

"If they don't get this right and citizenry skip this new version of Part, that's going to mean a lot of lost revenue for Microsoft," Osterman said.

Juan Carlos Perez covers enterprise communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and unspecialised technology breaking tidings for The IDG News program Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.