Office

In what may be taken as some dreadful news to long-time fans of Cyanogen’s work in the custom Android-based ROM space, the group has today announced a partnership with Microsoft to pre-install many of the Redmond company’s consumer-facing apps on its mobile OS…
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Microsoft is bringing its OneNote scanner app called Office Lens to Android after first launching on Windows Phone a year ago. Office Lens is similar to other on-the-go scanner apps letting you use your Android smartphone camera to capture information from receipts, documents, and other information around you. Office Lens is different, however, because it’s connected directly with OneNote, Microsoft’s cloud-syncing notebook service.

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Microsoft announced today that it’s expanding partnerships with Samsung, Dell, and other manufacturers to get its suite of mobile productivity apps onto more Android devices.
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Microsoft made some announcements related to upcoming Office features and the evolution of its email products today and within the blog post announced an upcoming OWA app for Android.

OWA, that’s Microsoft’s Outlook Web App that is already available on Windows Phone and through an iOS app, will arrive later this year as a native Android app. That doesn’t mean that Microsoft won’t continue working directly with Android manufacturers to integrate Exchange support, but the app will give Android users access to the latest OWA features whenever they are ready to roll out.

Microsoft didn’t provide any other details but said that OWA for Android along with other email features announced in the blog post will roll out to Office 365 subscribers later this year. 
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The Wall Street Journal points to a recent survey in which over 1,100 IT administrators and business users were asked about their use of Google Apps in the workplace. According to the report, over two-thirds of respondents said that they prefer Google’s services to the point that they would be willing to spend their own hard-earned money on Google Apps for use in the office.

The survey also indicates a strong correlation between businesses that allow workers to bring their own devices for use at work and support for Google’s software. Of those surveyed, 83% said they brought their own mobile devices to work. It seems that Google’s move to create software for everyday usage has created an path to the workplace through employees who want to make their work tasts as easy to manage as their personal tasks.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wAgB5J1gSQ&w=600&h=420]

Imagine my shock and surprise as yet another anti-Chromebook advertisement hits the YouTubes courtesy of Microsoft. The latest in the company’s anti-everything-Google campaign attacks the notion that a Chromebook has “everything you need” as a laptop.

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In 2016, Google plans to open a brand-new one-million-square-foot office in London. We’ve already seen some images of the planned headquarters, but yesterday some fantastic new images were published that detail even more of what Google is planning to do with the massive campus.

The office will house a 20,000-square-foot bike shed, a public promenade, swimming pools, a rock-climbing wall, and more. There’s probably some work space in there, too, but details on that aren’t as plentiful. Quartz describes Google’s goal with the new office as an attempt to “make an office so you never want to leave.” It certainly sounds like Google is well on its way to accomplishing that goal.

You can find more images of the campus plans below.

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Since we first heard rumors that Microsoft was working on Office for iOS and Android as far back as 2011 and got a look at alleged leaked images of an iPad app that Microsoft later denied were real, every couple of months we’ve seen reports that say the app is coming soon. First it was November 2012, then early 2013, and others claimed “sometime after” March 2013. Along the way  The latest rumor: Microsoft has Office for iPhone and Android is scheduled for fall 2014.

Zdnet claims to have got its hands on Microsoft roadmap for next year and says on it is “iOS/Android support for Office”:
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According to a new report from Bloomberg, police in South Korea searched offices belonging to Samsung yesterday in a raid connected with an ongoing case related to whether or not Samsung was involved in the leaking of trade secrets. Police originally charged six employees from LG Display related to the theft of OLED technology from Samsung. Reports from last year claimed Samsung employees were fired in connection with leaking the technology, and today an LG spokesperson confirmed the latest investigation is related to its OLED TV panel technology:

“The latest investigation is related to large-sized OLED TV panel technology, but the police have made the allegation themselves,” Son Young Jun, a Seoul-based LG Display spokesman, said by phone today. LG said in July the information its employees were charged with leaking or stealing at the time was widely known in the industry and wasn’t considered to contain trade secrets.

Police in the South Korea wouldn’t comment on yesterday’s raid, but LG reportedly said “it didn’t report Samsung to police in connection with the current investigation.” 
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After releasing a free version of the Quickoffice iPad app for its Google Apps for Business customers in December, Google today announced free iPhone and Android versions of the app exclusively for its Apps for Business customers.

Google Apps for Business can already edit Microsoft Office files using Quickoffice on an iPad, and starting today they can do the same on iPhone and Androiddevices. From Word to Excel to Powerpoint, you can make quick edits at the airport or from the back of a taxi and save and share everything in Google Drive… iPad and iPhone users can open and edit Office files directly from the Drive app. Just open Drive and select the file, make edits using Quickoffice and save it back to Drive.

Google noted the updated apps also bring new features including support for multiple Google Drive accounts, improved chart rendering, ZIP folders from multiple files, and the ability to sort Drive files by “Shared with me, Starred, and Recent”:

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The Verge has what it says are previews of Microsoft Office for the two platforms that own 90 percent of the smartphone and tablet markets.

The Verge has learned through several sources close to Microsoft’s plans that the company will release Office versions for Android and iOS in early 2013.

Office Mobile will debut in the form of free apps that allow Android and iOS users to view Microsoft Office documents on the move. Like the existing SkyDrive and OneNote apps, Office Mobile will require a Microsoft account. 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.

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[youtube=http://youtu.be/sYBy0p485Sc]

Microsoft is slated to unveil its next iteration of Office today, and The Wall Street Journal’s Shira Ovide is prepping the announcement with some comparison data about the productivity suite and its direct cloud-based rival Google Apps.

According to the WSJ’s video above, Dominion Enterprises held a $2 million annual contract with Microsoft, but it recently decided to switch to Google Apps. The company now pays $200,000 for Google’s services.

Despite the loss, the Office sodtware remains a hugely successful product for Microsoft. It is one of the company’s most profitable goods, and it continues to maintain a stronghold in the desktop productivity market. Google Apps, on the other hand, is still in its infancy, but it is rapidly gaining steam and attention.

Today’s announcement from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will surely set the pace for the company’s future against the ever-growing Google Apps.

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