As the iPad makes its way into the hearts and plans of the enterprise, businesses let the device make its way into office workflows. The Quickoffice family of apps makes mobile office work possible and even pleasant, with access to the cloud.

Share slides and docs via the cloud

There are more clouds than ever to share work through, thanks to the latest version of Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite. In addition to Google, Dropbox, box.net, and Mobile Me’s iDisk and Web interface, the suite’s been integrated with two additional mobile cloud storage providers, Huddle and SugarSync. And what’s on the way in a new version is support for social publishing partners Slideshare, Scribd and .docstoc.

We’ve used Quickoffice for about six months here as a regular iPad tool. It’s got built-in accommodations for Microsoft’s Office tools, so you can save and trade and edit files for things like Word and Excel. Last year they added Powerpoint support, and at year’s end the Suite gained the ability to edit Powerpoint slides. When I think of the trips where slide edits might have made a difference, if only the right person in the company could get to them, this editing is one of the best arguments for pushing your office work, via these clouds, to the iPad. Read the rest of this entry »

Apple and Microsoft used to be arch-rivals, but Google seems to have taken that spot in today’s market. Just the same, Microsoft has a multiple personality — maybe not a disorder — pose when it comes to supporting Apple’s business products such as an OS or office software.

From the Macintosh Business Unit, Apple desktop customers can get the first 30-day-free trials for Office 2011 starting this week.

Today Microsoft has made a free 30-day Office for Mac 2011 trial available at www.officeformac.com/trial.

This week also marks the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. This year the Office for Mac team has a show special tied to the event. If you attend the expo check out your badge for details and see the Office for Mac blog for more information and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more Macworld goodness throughout the week.

From its Windows unit, CNET reports on a comparison between Windows 7 products and the iPad in the enterprise IT world, with some predictable results. I wince a bit when I see the Microsoft slide boasting that Windows 7 has support for “the largest breath of printing software” when it means “breadth.” Not a word breathed about Windows Tablets out there working in businesses.

Microsoft is big enough to be both kinds of creature in the Apple world: adversary and ally. Pick your posture while evaluating products.

Outlook's message gathering in Conversations

Conversations, calendaring: These are some of the new core features that Microsoft brings to the Mac community in late October with the Business Edition of Office for Mac 2011. These features show up in Outlook for the Mac, a version of the popular Windows mail client that’s making its debut on Apple products.

Outlook is included in two versions of the Office for Mac release: a Home and Business Edition priced at $199 and an Academic release at $99. Outlook has a mixed reputation among the Windows community, in part because it was wired into the PC environments so closely that hackers exploited its integration.

Microsoft doesn’t expect that to be an issue with Outlook for the Mac; the computer’s environment doesn’t offer the same sort of back doors for malware to muck up your business files. The Business Edition also includes familiar apps reworked for improved productivity: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and even Messenger. Buying a copy of Office 2008 until November 30 will earn you a free upgrade to the new release. Read the rest of this entry »

On a recent trip I picked up a copy of The Atlantic, the aging magazine that used to feature reports from the fine James Fallows on subjects of technology. Fallows is a business writer as much as a technical savant, and he brought a generation of experience to his work. Alas, a replacement editor falls well short of that skill set in assessing the iPad’s chances to change mobile computing. Megan McArdle, the magazine’s business and economics editor, wrote this under-researched assessment of a product she’s never used.

The iPad does a bunch of things, but none of them exceptionally well. You can’t read it in full daylight, and its battery life is much shorter than Kindle’s. With no true built-in keyboard or ability to multitask, it’s not a substitute for a laptop — and unlike my iPhone, it won’t fit in a pocket, take pictures, or make calls. Unless you need it for one of its speciality uses, it doesn’t replace anything you already have; it’s just one more thing to carry.

Pages, from Apple's video demo

It appears McArdle is among the unwashed masses of journalists who didn’t enjoy a few minutes with the real product before writing her April piece on Kindle vs. iPad. I’ve owned the former for a year and expect the latter within the week. But it’s possible that McArdle will want to revise her gradecard about “doing nothing exceptionally well.” All she needs to motivate her corrections are the Apple videos online this week showing off Mail and Pages, the iPad’s e-mail and writing tools. Yes, this might be something else to carry — something more useful to a business than a copy of The Atlantic. Aside from a smartphone like the 3GS iPhone, I can’t see what else she would need to tote. And at just 24 ounces, this new Apple tool is likely to carry a heft to make the 6-ounces of April’s Atlantic seem like dead weight. Read the rest of this entry »

Excel poses for its close-up at Macworld

Microsoft has released the 11.5.7 update to its Office suite, aimed at the users of Office 2004. You should download this update to protect your Mac from being hacked by compromised Word, Excel or PowerPoint files. Even the Mac has security flaws, but more common are the hacker entry points through things like Office or Adobe’s Flash. (If you aren’t up to date on the Microsoft security releases, 11.5.7 won’t load up. You can check your status in the Updater Logs folder inside your Microsoft Office 2004 folder. Microsoft also has prior updates available for download, to catch you up.)

Microsoft was one of the few big-name vendors at this year’s Macworld Expo, but it didn’t have new software to roll out this month in conjunction with its show appearance. The Redmond Giant was talking up the forthcoming release of Microsoft Outlook for the Mac. (Talking only, since no demos were presented at the Microsoft booth.) Outlook will be a replacement for Entourage, which still has advocates within the Mac expert community. One advantage of Entourage, noted in a Macworld panel, is its smooth interface with Microsoft Exchange servers, operated at countless companies who handle their own e-mail. Outlook will be inside the Office 2011 suite, and it’s not yet clear if it will be sold standalone. Entourage never was. Read the rest of this entry »