Microsoft Office Makes it to Chromebooks, Still Eludes Other Linux Distros

[btarunr]

Microsoft released one of its key software products, Microsoft Office, to all Chromebooks. Office for Android is now available on all Google Play-enabled Chromebooks. Chrome OS is derived from Android, which itself is a Linux-based operating system. Like the rest of the Android software ecosystem, Office for Android eludes other desktop Linux distributions, due to lack of the required APIs and other quasi-proprietary dependencies exclusively found on Android and Chrome OS.

Microsoft Office is one of the "killer apps" that keep Windows popular. It's been available on the Apple Mac platform for over a decade, and made its long march to the Android platform with the decline of Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform. It should finally make premium chromebooks, such as the Google Pixelbook (pictured below), worth the buy to business professionals on the move.



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[WaroDaBeast]

Eh... They'll probably only make a version that runs natively on Ubuntu (or any other distro) when said distro will have enough marketshare.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

" It should finally make premium chromebooks, such as the Google Pixelbook (pictured below), worth the buy to business professionals on the move."

Why? Why would office on chrome OS make any difference, when for the same price you can get a proper business laptop with better battery life, hardware that can be replaced and upgraded, and an OS that can run on a domain, install third party software, and isnt limited to 5 years of updates by google's dumb update policies?

Office doesnt fix the systemic issue of chrome OS not being a fully fledged OS. Business professionals need a proper machine to do work, not a glorified facebook/google data mining machine running a web browser.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Haven't used MS Office in over a decade. Open Office and Libre Office are fully functional and competent office suites. Couldn't care less about MSOffice and most other Linux users don't either. What ChromeOS and Android really need is better open source office suite. Android has AndrOpenOffice, but not lot of anything else that is open source.

 

[kn00tcn]

why do we need native (office) apps?

Haven't used MS Office in over a decade. Open Office and Libre Office are fully functional and competent office suites. Couldn't care less about MSOffice and most other Linux users don't either. What ChromeOS and Android really need is better open source office suite. Android has AndrOpenOffice, but not lot of anything else that is open source.

same question, what's the value in native, some local storage access?

 

[StrayKAT]

I guess this would be useful for someone like my dad..who uses Office, but probably doesn't need the bloat of Windows. My brother just got my mom a Chromebook and my dad would probably be better with it if not for Office.

But users like him might be a minority. Not sure. People who use Office, but don't want or know anything else about computers.

 

[R0H1T]

I guess this would be useful for someone like my dad..who uses Office, but probably doesn't need the bloat of Windows. My brother just got my mom a Chromebook and my dad would probably be better with it if not for Office.

But users like him might be a minority. Not sure. People who use Office, but don't want or know anything else about computers.

I'd say users like that are growing, rapidly, all thanks to android. I've been using Android x86 (live CD) for close to 5 years now & with the number of things that I need/use on Android still growing, Windows is getting more irrelevant by the day. Take your workstation apps or games, PCMR, there's very little I'd miss going from Windows to chromebook or even Android. HTPC & MM tasks are a breeze on many linux distros & with Google throwing all their weight behind chromebooks & Android, Windows & OS X are looking more & more like bloatware each passing day.

 

[StrayKAT]

I'd say users like that are growing, rapidly, all thanks to android. I've been using Android x86 (live CD) for close to 5 years now & with the number of things that I need/use on Android still growing, Windows is getting more irrelevant by the day. Take your workstation apps or games, PCMR, there's very little I'd miss going from Windows to chromebook or even Android. HTPC & MM tasks are a breeze on many linux distros & with Google throwing all their weight behind chromebooks & Android, Windows & OS X are looking more & more like bloatware each passing day.

Maybe you're right. He actually has an android phone too, so maybe I should look into it.

As for myself, it'll never happen. I'm a gamer.

 

[lexluthermiester]

why do we need native (office) apps? same question, what's the value in native, some local storage access?

Please define what you mean by "native"..

 

[Red_Machine]

It's been available on the Apple Mac platform for over a decade

It was first released on Apple Macintosh back in 1990, almost an entire year before it was released for Windows. That would be almost 30 years, not "over a decade".

 

[StrayKAT]

It was first released on Apple Macintosh back in 1990, almost an entire year before it was released for Windows. That would be almost 30 years, not "over a decade".

You could say before that.. as word was made in the 80s. It's partly the reason why MS made Windows in the first place. Because Gates got an inside look at Apple supplying apps for them and saw the future.

 

[lexluthermiester]

It was first released on Apple Macintosh back in 1990, almost an entire year before it was released for Windows. That would be almost 30 years, not "over a decade".

You would be incorrect about that. The first Microsoft word processing product released was on the PC in 1983, and then on Apple Mac 1985. Microsoft "Easy Office" was released on the Mac in 1989 which contained a functionality limited version of Word, Excel and Mail. The first official standard version of Microsoft Office was released on PC for Windows 3.0 in 1990. If you are going to make statements, make sure you do your fact checking first.

EDIT; Not trying to pick a fight, only correct a few bits of information. I was working on Mac's and PC's at the time and was present for those releases. Your statement seemed a bit off, that's all

 

[Red_Machine]

I looked it up on Wikipedia. Office for Mac 1.0 was released January 23rd, 1990. Office for Windows 1.0 was released November 19th, 1990.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I looked it up on Wikipedia. Office for Mac 1.0 was released January 23rd, 1990. Office for Windows 1.0 was released November 19th, 1990.

Funny, I just checked there too. It says October 1990 for Windows and 1989 for Mac. Don't know what you are looking at, but I was actually there and did installations of such at the time. But it's all good, details, details..

 

[Red_Machine]

I'm looking in the "History of Microsoft Office" article. The "Microsoft Office" article implies that the 1989 release was a promotional copy only and was not for the general public.

 

[Frick]

Haven't used MS Office in over a decade. Open Office and Libre Office are fully functional and competent office suites. Couldn't care less about MSOffice and most other Linux users don't either. What ChromeOS and Android really need is better open source office suite. Android has AndrOpenOffice, but not lot of anything else that is open source.

"Fully functional" depends alot on what you do. Personally I find everything except Excel to be annoying, and that is even when I now I have used Libreoffice and its terrible UI for quite some time. For many users they are just not cutting it, some of the reasons are because everyone else is using.

 

[lexluthermiester]

"Fully functional" depends alot on what you do. Personally I find everything except Excel to be annoying, and that is even when I now I have used Libreoffice and its terrible UI for quite some time. For many users they are just not cutting it, some of the reasons are because everyone else is using.

You said it yourself, it depends greatly on what you do. But also on how you do it and what is preferred. "Fully Functional" means it does everything needed and more. Where I work, Microsoft Office(and Microsoft products in general except Windows) were given the boot in favor of Open Office in 2006. A few years later Libre Office was adopted. I'm talking about a facility with a little over 4000 staff. The UI is perfectly functional. And is very much preferred over the "ribbons" crap. The mobile apps are even less liked. For mission-critical systems, even Windows isn't used.

 

[StrayKAT]

I'm looking in the "History of Microsoft Office" article. The "Microsoft Office" article implies that the 1989 release was a promotional copy only and was not for the general public.

Office as a whole product, yes.. but MS was making those office automation apps separately for awhile before that. At least that seems to be the confusion here. They were like the defacto suppliers for IBM and Apple and others for different apps (along with DOS), until Gates saw his opening and took them all on with Windows.