Microsoft Releases Touch Office For Android Before Windows 8

The latest news from the Redmond based software giant Microsoft suggests that the company is all set to release the touch version of the productivity suite Office for Android in the coming weeks, even before releasing it for their own Windows 8 operating system. The touch based Office suite for android is all set to release with the introduction of the Modern styled Windows Store apps, which is expected to release anytime soon. According to our sources, users of Microsoft’s own Windows Phone 8 will be the last ones to get the touch-based Office productivity suite.

The company has already released the productivity suite for devices that run on iOS, like iPads even before releasing it for their own operating system. Former CEO Steve Ballmer had kept the already developed productivity suite at bay in an effort to release it after releasing the productivity suite for Windows. However, the new CEO of Satya Nadella could not find any logic in keeping an already developed suite from the market, and so initiated the release of Office touch version for iPads.

Although earlier our sources from Microsoft had suggested that the Windows 8 version of the new Office suite would be released later this year, we now hear that this won’t be happening any time soon. According to latest news from the software giant, the Office touch version for Windows Phone devices would be releasing only in Spring of 2015, maybe along with the release of the new Operating system, Windows 9. We were not able to procure the reason for the shifting of the release date, but sources said that updated Office for desktop is also set to release in early Spring.

The release of Office for Android device can be seen as the first step Microsoft takes in becoming a cross-platform service provider. The idea was hatched in the head of the new CEO of the company, who has a vision to change the company from a mere software provider to a cross platform service provider. Nadella commented on the release of Office for Android as follows, “The intent here is to make sure our services are available on all devices. There are going to be Windows devices and there are going to be other devices and we have to make sure our services run on all of them.”

He also added, "We are definitely going to have touch-first Office on Windows, and it is coming. But I didn’t want us to hold back.”

Firefox Drops Windows 8 Version Citing Lack Of Users

Mozilla, creator of the famous web browser Firefox, has revealed that it will not develop a separate version compatible with Windows 8 citing lack of users. Johnathan Nightingale, vice president of Mozilla Firefox, stated several reasons for first halting and then subsequently dropping the production of Mozilla Firefox for Windows 8, the primary reason being too much investment for a little or no impact.

Because of the changes in the operating system, Mozilla would have to develop a web browser from scratch, and besides that, there are very few users to test out the many bugs, which will prop up in the final product. Nightingale explained, “When I talk about the need to pick our battles, this feels like a bad one to pick: significant investment and low impact”.

Windows 8 market share hiked in September to 8.02% and since then dropped to 6% mark in November. Windows 8.1 currently has only 3.1% of the market share. Even if the acceptance rate is slower than anticipated, more users are bound to embrace it now, as the support for Microsoft Windows XP has ended. But this decision from Mozilla came as a surprise for everybody, as the company spokesperson were quite confident about overcoming all the hurdles they were facing to develop the browser for the newly released platform.

Interestingly, where Mozilla failed to perform, Google released a browser version, which can run on the modern system provided it is set as the default browser. Yet, because of the restrictions imposed by Microsoft, Chrome now has certain issues like not being able to support hardware acceleration and inability to work in high-resolution displays.

As for now, no third party browser developer other than Microsoft can build an application for the Windows Store and are restricted from creating metro style browsers. Such browsers can only execute if they were made the default browser on x86 or x64 systems, running the flawed operating system.

Note that the development of the browser is only paused at the moment, and Mozilla will still maintain the code it wrote. In case the platform becomes popular, they will restart the work and release a compatible browser. On one hand, users are commending Microsoft to release Microsoft Office suite on Apples digital store and on the other its restricting rival companies to launch product in its own platform, which a Mozilla lawyer has described as a potential Anti-trust issue. It’s quite complicated!

About The New Update For Windows OS 8

Microsoft’s decision to launch an update to their new OS has more to do with saving the OS from becoming a complete failure like Windows Vista. Within the first few days of its launch, it became clear that the Windows 8 users are not at all happy with the absence of the Start button from the new OS. Microsoft’s plan to make the user interface in all the versions of the new OS exactly the same – the Metro UI – across multiple platforms like tablets, smart phones, laptops, etc, seems to have backfired.

The new UI makes Windows OS 8 less user-friendly

The Start Menu was there for a reason – to make the process of accessing multiple options in Windows OS simple, involving just two steps. You click on the Start menu and then select the program or option that you were looking for. The absence of the Start menu in the new OS meant that users would have to go through three or four steps to execute simple tasks.

This also meant that there was no Shutdown, Restart or Stand-by buttons – which also were present in the Start Menu in the old Windows versions. Microsoft assumed that users would get used to pressing the power key on their systems whenever they needed to access these functions.

And, of course, for functions like Sleep, Restart, Stand-by, etc, they provided these options. But, with the absence of the Start menu, users had to start going through multiple steps to reach these options. To avoid this, Microsoft advised them to create shortcut icons for accessing such options. Of course, we’d rather have the Start Menu, which had all the shortcuts to the different options present in the systems.

Microsoft brings back the Start button in Windows 8.1

In the beginning, it appeared as if Microsoft had completely forgotten about the Windows Vista failure. Like Windows OS 8, Windows Vista was also a cool OS with a very aesthetically appealing graphical user interface. But, it failed because the cool new UI was not user-friendly.

However, the Vista experience meant that Microsoft was quick to correct its mistakes. The update to the new OS – Windows OS 8.1 – brings back the Start button and makes the new OS a little more user-friendly. Plus, Microsoft is offering the update to the Windows OS 8 users for free. So, update your OS and see the difference for yourself.