Tom Warren of technology website The Verge reported on Monday that "Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans" have told him that Microsoft will release Microsoft Office for the iPad next week. Microsoft recently promoted Satya Nadella to be its new CEO, and on Thursday, March 27, Nadella will hold his first press event as Microsot CEO. Warren reports that Nadella will use the occasion to introduce Microsoft Office for the iPad. I didn't write about this rumor yesterday because we have been hearing rumors of an upcoming version of Microsoft Office for iPad since 2011. But the more I look into it, I think that there might be something to this latest rumor.
First, rumors are generally most reliable when they predict something that is not very far away. This rumor concerns something happening next week.
Second, the reporter who wrote the story for The Verge, Tom Warren, has credibility. He is the Microsoft reporter for The Verge, he has been covering the company for years and he seems to know quite a bit about what is going on at Microsoft. For example, on March 12, 2014, Warren reported that according to sources familiar with Microsoft plans, Microsoft would release OneNote for Mac in March ... and sure enough, that software was released this week. On September 9, 2013, Warren reported that according to his sources, Microsoft would reveal the Surface 2 on September 23, 2013 ... and sure enough, it did. On August 24, 2013, Warren reported that his sources were telling him that Windows 8.1 would be available to download on October 17, 2013 ... and sure enough, it was.
Third, other experienced reporters are saying that their sources tell them the same thing. Barb Darrow of GigaOm reported yesterday that her sources confirmed Tuesday morning that Office for iPad would be revealed next week. Additionally, Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet, who has been covering Microsoft for decades, reports that "According to several sources of mine, Microsoft's latest timetable calls for the company to finally introduce the long-rumored Microsoft Office for iPad suite of applications before the end of March 2014. This March 27 event sounds like it might be the time and place."
For these three reasons, I think that there may be something to this rumor that we will see Microsoft Office for iPad next week. But in my mind the more important question is: will it be a full-featured app or one of more limited usefulness? Microsoft released Microsoft Office Mobile for the iPhone in June of 2013, and as I noted in my review, it is a mixed bag. The good news is that you can read and edit Word documents without losing any of the document formatting. So if someone sends you a draft of a brief, you can revise it and email it back without worrying about deleting some of the styles, messing up the fonts, etc. Other iPhone apps — including Apple's own Pages — are far less successful.
The bad news is that the features in Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone are limited. For example, you cannot see redline edits (tracked changes) in a document, nor can you see footnotes — two features that attorneys use every day. You can view, but you cannot edit .doc files; the app only edits .docx files. You also cannot change fonts, paragraph formatting (even simple formatting like a bullet list or a numbered list), line justification or indents.
Darrow and Foley's articles say nothing about the features of the rumored app, and Warren's article doesn't tell us much more. First Warren says that the "iPad variant of Office will be similar to the iPhone version," which concerns me. But then he says: "We’re told that document creation and editing is fully supported." That certainly sounds good, albeit inconsistent with the first statement about the iPhone version.
For years now, the #1 iPad question that attorneys ask me has been what is the best way to work with Microsoft Word files on an iPad. My fingers are crossed that Microsoft will unveil an app next week that satisfies the needs of attorneys.
