Microsoft Office for iPad: over 27 million downloads on the App Store

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Upon its release in late March, Microsoft Office applications for iPad already accumulated more than 27 million downloads, and that only in the top 10 markets. This has been assured Julia White, director general of the Office division, during its keynote at the TechEd conference in Houston.

J. White has not offered any data on the percentage of conversion of these free downloads from current users with a subscription of Office 365, which may help us to see things with a little more perspective on the success of an initiative that Microsoft was reluctant to launch.

On the one hand this mark reached in 46 days, on the other hand reflects an understandable slowdown downloads when compared to the first 12 million downloads achieved just one week after its release in the App Store when permeating the top of the ranking free downloads. 

Since then, word has remained in the United States a remarkable fourth place while Excel and PowerPoint have fallen up to the number 18 and 23 respectively.

Google divides his Drive in separate applications for iOS

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Google has given us the month-end surprise yesterday launching Documents and Sheets, two separate apps, to manage text documents and spreadsheets stored in Google Drive. An application for each file type: like Apple with iWork and Microsoft with Office for iPad.

There is not a simple separation: each of these applications will have the ability to create and edit documents without an internet connection, with a very clean interface,  focused only on those files. If we want to see the rest of data we have stored in Google Drive, follow its official application available for it. 

The presentation application will "coming soon" to complete the circle office automation. So we have three trios iOS applications face to face: 

• Pages / Word / Documents
• Numbers / Excel / Sheets
• Keynote / PowerPoint / Presentations. 

The battle has begun. 

These two new Google apps are completely free, and you can download for iPhone and iPad from the App Store.

Absolute growth of Apple. +39%

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After analyzing the results , this is what I have commented Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer , CEO and CFO at Apple respectively, in the press release :

We are very proud of our quarterly results , especially our strong iPhone sales and record revenues from our services. We are eager to launch more new products that only Apple could bring to market.

We generated 13,500 million in cash to our operations and we have returned nearly 21,000 million to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases in the fourth quarter. This makes our dividend program has already returned 66,000 million. 

The total cash available right now Apple is enviable 150,600 million. In addition, the company has used the press conference to announce a split of its shares, which means that now Apple will have a greater number of shares traded maintaining its social capital. Having exceeded expectations, shares have risen 7.7% since the results were revealed.

Here are some interesting points that Tim Cook mentioned by Luca Maestri , who gets the role of Peter Oppenheimer to anticipate your retirement

• Apple is gaining market share in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada , Germany, France , Vietnam and China.

• Confirmed 800 million iTunes accounts , most of them linked to a credit card.

• IPad sales were worse than analysts expected, but better than I expected Apple.

• Already Apple Stores in fifteen countries. Angela Ahrendts is confirmed that Apple will enter next week .

• 66% of those who have activated a new iPad are people who had never had an iPad .

• Apple has bought 24 companies in the last year and a half.

• We have sold over 6.3 million iPhones last year .

• ITunes Digital stores have generated 5,200 million dollars in revenue , growing 24 % over last year. Have been downloaded more than 70,000 million applications.

• The good performance is due mainly to Mac MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

• The iPad web traffic is four times greater than the web traffic of all makes and models of Android tablets combined .

• Two-thirds of people who want to buy a tablet in the next three months want to buy an iPad .

• Financially, Peter Oppenheimer leaves an Apple twenty times larger than the one found . He has not missed any release of results in ten years.

Questions and Answers Press

Here we highlight the most interesting questions that the press has made Tim Cook and Luca Maestri:

800 million iTunes accounts is a great growth ... then why the revenue growth has decelerated in iTunes? Tim commented that think they can monetize their services in existing areas and in new areas, but also notes that even so the growth has been very strong in markets such as the Chinese .

Can you accelerate Office for iPad tablet sales? Tim has realized that the iPad is the fastest growing product in the history of Apple, and "believes" that Office can help as a key tool in business.

Many competitors have lowered the prices of its smartphones, how do you see the market? Tim 's answer is that Apple wants to watch for those who only want the best smartphones, and not all of these smartphones have to be the most expensive. They have learned much selling iPhones in China.

Does the AppleTV stops being a hobby? Tim insists that other for sales and have good feelings about the dealings with distributors of content.

What happens when the money is your only goal?

Steve Ballmer (Microsoft) has always told us what was the goal of Microsoft and the Bill Gates hired him, according to a story in The Loop:

"When the then founder and CEO Bill Gates hired Ballmer Procter & Gamble in 1980, was supposed to be the "man of business, whatever that means," Ballmer said. Since that day, his battle cry has always been, "How do we make money? How do we make money? How do we make money? "

In other interview, Ballmer said:  

In the technology business, it seems that there are four ways to make money: sell devices to consumers, sell phone services to consumers, sell to corporate IT departments and sell to corporate marketing departments.

This focus on selling and making more money is what Microsoft got under the leadership of Ballmer. I think if you have a good business, it is relatively easy to optimize to get the most benefit in the short term, but after just missing the point. When you've earned money, what is your goal? More money? Just wondering what you're doing. 

Much of the problems facing Microsoft are due to this excessive focus on maximizing profits. They have put aside everything else, everything important, everything that made ​​Microsoft a great company. The motto of "a PC on every desk" changed to "Windows and Office on every PC."

Can Apple create a really cheap iPhone? (1st Part)

Since the launch of iPhone 5c and deception of the public, analysts, bloggers and shareholders about its high price, there is a widespread perception that Apple iPhone could make a really cheap if wanted. But as you want, we have had to settle for an iPhone 5 plastic-coated colors.
-Plastic with a finish and exquisite touch. We must say everything-.

This view on Apple could go into the middle and low market segment as if by magic, in my opinion, at least partly wrong. But I have them all with me. I can think of arguments for both an affirmative answer as a negative to the question in the title of this article.

Why Apple can not make a cheap iPhone (1st Part)

When a company is founded, business model and value chain is created from the first minute. As the years pass and if the company is successful, these two elements are based within nature itself and its rationale. Every day is more optimized, but also makes it difficult to switch these two factors. 

Change the business model and the value chain is difficult, very difficult in addition to painful. But it is not impossible. Here we have Microsoft to try to change a business model based on selling licenses to other services and with Office 365 subscriptions. We can also see Adobe make the same change.

Returning to the case of Apple, there are three limitations that I think will prevent creating a cheaper iPhone:

• iCloud. Why, if there is something Apple criticized what we are unfortunate to have been attempts in the cloud. Falls on the iCloud service, a minimum storage per user account, increases charged to doubloon space, etc.. Not to mention the widespread synchronization falls in the rest of its services and that causes nightmares for developers. It is clear that Apple is not a company born as Google internet. Google lives for internet. Can you imagine millions of users putting more pressure on iCloud? Just cope building data centers throughout North Carolina.

• The Apple business model focuses on the absolute control of the user experience and in the premium segment, with margins, prices, products, customer service, Apple Stores, materials, and design clients, all premium. Everything Apple does is geared towards that goal. The value chain Apple is ready to turn their premium products, from start to finish, and is not intended for anything else.

• Production volume. Tim Cook loves to say after each weekend launch of the new iPhone and a smile from ear to ear that of "The demand of the iPhone 5 has been incredible and we are working hard to bring an iPhone 5 in the hands of the so customers want as quickly as possible. "Sorry Tim, but a broken stock is also bad news for Apple. A potential customer can not find what you want at that moment is a client pissed least or a lost customer and will not return in the worst case.

Here's Word to iPad

Satya Nadella began the great change that you want to apply to Microsoft two days ago, launching Office for iPad and embracing iOS as a platform where you can get a good market share in their applications. So far that's what it looks like, because if you open the App Store from an iPad you will see that Word, Excel, PowerPoint and even OneNote are the most downloaded free applications. 

With this scenario, it is time to take a good look at the Office applications. And start with Word, which is probably the most used. It is difficult to know why: globally many more documents are created spreadsheets and presentations. Let's see if Microsoft Word has a champion application in the App Store.

Microsoft finally respects the iOS platform and launches Office done perfectly tailored

After a brief walk about the application, without rummaging through all the sections, I have already taken a good feeling: Microsoft finally he has got the hang of the App Store. He had already hinted with OneNote, but Word (and other Office applications) confirms that this is maintained applications. In Redmond have not been limited to trying to patch something they had or to be ready to protect their selfish platforms: have created a Word from scratch and respecting the platform to be run. Congratulations.

A success of Microsoft , but users will accept it ?

Personally, if these applications are the first of a new era of Microsoft, I'm excited. It does so because this is a matter of good. A simple, easy to use interface, which shows that Word is not locked into what we all take for granted always and I even get to like it more than the pages to have a touch of identifying color.

Where is Word scratched me in their business model. I would not pay for a subscription to Office 365 knowing that I can edit and save .DOC and .DOCX with Pages. And I can also edit documents compatible with Google Drive. We could use the argument format compatibility with the official word, but at this point it comes down to use fonts that are installed font everywhere.

So yes, I think Word is an excellent application... to see Word documents. And that can already do with other alternatives that I'm used, further allow me to edit documents if paying a penny. That's the Word's problem: late.

Here's PowerPoint to iPad

It was time for the real work. The iPad, of course. On March 27, Microsoft announced the official launch of its famous Office suite, now the most powerful office tool on the Apple tablet. 

Before going to discuss the virtues (many) and weaknesses (few) PowerPoint to iPad, is necessary to differentiate between different types of users: casual and professional. User homespun PowerPoint is too big, and not so much in features but rather in handling price. PowerPoint to iPad is designed for someone who lives to make presentations, someone who is immersed in the Microsoft ecosystem has several devices and values ​​the synchronization between them.

PowerPoint to iPad: quick, easy and intuitive

To test this app, I created a presentation from scratch using almost all the features it offers, namely: 

• A default template of the wide selection. 
• Different slider distributions. 
• Geometric shapes, arrows and text to create a simple flow diagram. 
• Created a table of 5 × 6 with a custom distribution. 
• Place a couple of photos and use frames, shadows and effects. 
• Transitions of different types. 
• Copy, duplicate and move slides from one place to another. 
• So a total of 6 slides in half an hour, since the launch of the app to have it complete (removing several breaks in between). The result you can see for yourself in the gallery at the end of the post, but as you advance that is very satisfying for a job done from a tablet without a mouse and keyboard.