It’s bad enough they refuse to open up their Office app for the iPad in a failed bid to get customers to switch to the Surface— which clearly no one wants since there’s 9,000,000 of them sitting in a warehouse, unsold.
Now I have to watch a TV commercial which bashes the Google Chromebook, a fine fine little machine may I say. The ad claims that if you buy the Chromebook you are getting “Scroogled” because you can’t use Windows with it, whereas you can with the Surface for $299.
The facts: you CAN use lite versions of all 4 Office programs on Chromebook, for free, on Skydrive.com.
The facts: yes the Surface uses Windows, but Office is NOT included in that $299. You have to pay extra for the Windows program that is used the most.
Microsoft, once again has sat back on its arrogant ass and just like the Internet browser market in the 90s, missed out on the Pad market. And instead of coming out with a product people actually want, is using he same cheap bullying tactics it used in the 90s that got it in trouble with the US government.
Dear Microsoft: stop it with the lies about Google. I demand Microsoft stop being dicks and release Office for the iPad. No one wants your stupid tablet. Fuck off.
The only problem with your rant is that if MS tries to bully with the Surface that no one wants and Win8 which no one wants, people are just going to laugh at them.
And switch from Office to other apps which are cheaper and simpler.
If Office is no longer a standard, the world will be a better place.
So keep it up Microsoft! Drive yourself into irrelevancy.
I read somewhere that Scroogled coffee mugs are popular with Google employees.
Seems to me the bigger mistake Microsoft is making is to push the Surface as a Productivity Tool. People buy tablets because they want something fun and personal. Putting an Excel spreadsheet on the screen in every ad makes it seem like a boring desktop PC that follows you everywhere.
I like my ipad but it is a consumption device and the kids love it.
I use my Toshiba Portege as my creative device. It converts into a nice tablet when I want to consume content.
I had a Chromebook and it was great as I was using our local carriers 4G/LTE network as a back up to wifi but it can get expensive using all that data!
Nup I’m sticking with Windows tablets as my laptop replacement and my ipad for sofa surfing.
It’s not about the iPad, exactly. MS doesn’t have a working touchscreen version of the full Office experience for any of the tablets, including Surface RT. The RT has “lite” versions, and the Surface Pro is an actual Windows Laptop, and runs the real Office programs. (And the Pro is selling pretty well, too. It’s the crippled RT version that’s clogging the shelves.)
So an actual app version of the full-featured Office is coming; it’s just taking longer than they thought.
Last I checked, you can use those web-app versions on iPads, too. I mean, if it counts when you do it on Chromebook, it counts when you do it on iPad, right?
Fact: I wouldn’t want a Surface RT if you paid me $299 to take it. A Surface Pro at that price would be a steal. They really are different machines, a fact you don’t seem to grasp.
That said, the Surface RT is now $199, or cheaper this Black Friday, and does in fact include a copy of Office RT - presumably because they don’t want the hassle of selling that software separately since it would inevitably be confused in buyers’ minds with the non-RT version.
See here:
The Surface 2 starts at $499 and comes with Office RT.
The Surface Pro starts at $899 - that’s a pretty damn nice price for a Windows laptop with a Wacom tablet attached to it. It may or may not include Office depending on which features you ask for - just like every other laptop known to man. Why you think this is some kind of conspiracy is unclear but it’s probably sign of deep personal problems.
So … Microsoft is bullying us by not forcing everyone to pay for an Office suite, whether they want it or not? And therefore the Government should sue them and force them to make us buy Office?
Dear russian heel: next time, try the valium. I think you’ll like it.
Microsoft will probably drop RT before too long, it makes sense and I think they will migrate Windows mobile to their light tablet offering. This is probably a sound move.
Oh good, someone that either works for Microsoft or develops software for Microsoft or resells their products got their panties up in a bunch:
They’ve had one for the iPhone for almost a year (what good is that?) therefore they have the ability to offer for the iPad for a while now but refuse to release it because they wasn’t everyone to buy their miserable tablets.
Thats fine but Microsoft is lying when they say you cant use Windows programs on a Chromebook in their TV commercials.
I grasp that. Except the Surface Pro is NOT $299 its several hundred dollars more. And you STILL have to pay extra for Office.
Well isnt that just so sweet and warm of Microsoft, the Cuddly Company. They FINALLY offer Office RT on their Surface RT for some Black Friday sale, of which you’ll have ZERO chance of finding in stock, anywhere. I doubt that special will last past this weekend even if it does you just said the RT is a piece of shit anyway so how is that a better deal than the Chromebook?
You got me figured out, I have DEEP psychological issues because of this. :rolleyes: The conspiracy is Microsoft won’t release Office for the iPad hoping people will buy their tablets, which the public, to its credit has not. Microsoft should just give up, and offer Office for their iPad (and make a nice chunk of change doing it) rather than lose billions force feeding their products down our throats. And stop lying about Google products.
WOW talk about twisting someones argument. I didn’t say anyone should be forced to do anything, Microsoft can offer an Office App for the iPad, and charge a fair price for it, then I as an iPad user can then decide whether or not to purchase it, not be forced to buy their tablet if I want to use Office, especially since I have a tablet I like, and one that came out years before theirs did. It was Microsoft’s arrogance or incompetence that caused them to be 3 years late with the Surface----why punish me as an existing iPad user for THAT? Its not like at the time I had a choice between an iPad and a Surface----the Surface did not exist.
I would but thanks to my deep personal disorders Valium wont mix with the Citalopram and Albilify I’m already taking, so you can take it for me. Say hi to Your Hero, Bill Gates while washing it down.
You know I used to be a bit o a Microsoft hater, way back, and a bit of a Google fanboy. Now I am just glad there is still (for now) someone around big enough to stand up to Google.
Incorrect. Office has been offered on the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 since release (along with extra Skydrive space and Skype minutes). It is not a special. I’m not 100% sure, but I think the Surface also include Office (and none of them is the stripped down Skydrive version).
That said, if your going to buy the cheapest model, depending on an individual’s needs, they might be better off with a Chromebook. But it’s a Microsoft commercial. Are you saying Microsoft should run commercials that taut Chromebooks?
I’m of the opposite opinion. The iPad’s biggest weakness is how ineffectual it is as a productivity tool and the best hope of topping it is making something as easy to use that can also do actual work without the sort of hoop-jumping Apple makes you go thru now. Microsoft would make a ton of money off a version of Office for the iPad, but they’d be gutting their own and everyone else’s chances at beating it some day. Once we get the Android equivalent of Windows 95 and a version of Office that works with it, Apple will be marginalized in the tablet/phone market same as they were with pcs.
If you hate Microsoft that much, why are you pissy about this? Android/iOS (or whatever the mobile version is called) are pretty much the first things to come along in 20 years which can break Windows’ stranglehold of the OS market, and Microsoft’s bundling issues can only help.
I was going to say “hey - it’s a Microsoft ad, why would you expect them to do anything other than self-promotion?” - except now I’ve actually watched it, I think it makes Microsoft look like dicks.
If the best thing a company can can say about their own product is “yeah, but someone else’s product sucks!”, they’re not winning my sympathy or support. There’s just no need and no place for this if you have a strong product.
It’s not their only commercial, just like the “I’m a PC. I’m a Mac” commercials were not Apples only commercial. Many companies campaigns include commercials both touting their product and denigrating the competitor. Sometimes they name them, often they do not.
Sure - but IMO, being a dick about competing products doesn’t add anything at all, especially being a dick in a purposely misleading fashion.
The ‘Scroogled’ ad is pretty misinformative - sure, it’s carefully framed as the opinion of this one guy, but it just makes me feel more: a)mistrustful of Microsoft b)curious about the actual capabilities of ChomeOS.