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Microsoft to unbundle Teams in Europe in bid to avoid EU antitrust fine
The move comes after a European Commission probe into the company's practices.
Microsoft will charge businesses $30 per user for its 365 AI Copilot
At the Microsoft Inspire partner event today, the Windows maker announced pricing for its AI-infused Copilot for Microsoft 365. The suite of contextual artificial intelligence tools, the fruit of the company’s OpenAI partnership, will cost $30 per user for business accounts. In addition, the company is launching Bing Chat Enterprise, a privacy-focused version of the AI chatbot with greater security and peace of mind for handling sensitive business data.
Microsoft Office 2021 starts at $150 and arrives on October 5th
The business version costs $250.
Microsoft is killing its Office app on Chromebooks
Microsoft is pulling support for its Office app for Android on Chrome OS. The web app will still be available, but it lacks offline access.
Microsoft boosts Teams with new presenter tools and PowerPoint integration
At its Ignite conference today, the company announced a slew of updates for its video chat tool, as well as new made-for-Teams speakers.
Microsoft's unified Office experience comes to iPad
Microsoft's combined Office app offers quick editing features optimized for smaller screens.
Google adds document editing to Gmail attachments in Workspace
Google is making it a lot easier to edit Microsoft Office documents sent as Gmail attachments.
Microsoft adds mouse and trackpad support to Office apps on iPad
This spring, Apple added mouse and trackpad support to the iPad with a software update, and ever since then, users with business to take care of have been waiting for Microsoft’s Office suite to include the feature. Now, 9to5Mac points out that Microsoft says a “phased rollout” is bringing the feature to its Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps on the platform. Microsoft also said the update is bringing new start screens and feature menus that expand its Fluent design language across the apps.
Microsoft 365 is now available worldwide
Microsoft Office 365 is now called Microsoft 365, and the company wants not only workers, but also families, to use its software.
Microsoft's all-in-one Office app is now available to all
Microsoft's all-in-one Office app is ready for primetime. The mobile-first application, which the company announced last November, has already been available as a public preview. That version was limited to Android users that signed up through a specific Google Group and 10,000 iOS testers that registered via Apple's TestFlight program, however. The consumer-ready Android app slipped into the Play Store earlier this week -- a littler earlier than planned, a Microsoft spokesperson told Engadget -- and now the iPhone version is officially out of beta. For now, the Android app has "limited" tablet support, and there's no iPad-specific version.
Microsoft will end support for Windows 10 Mobile Office apps in 2021
The end is nigh for Windows 10 Mobile. We already knew that technical support for the mobile operating system would end on December 10th, 2019 (yep, that's tomorrow). Now, we have an official end-of-life date for the Windows 10 Mobile Office apps, too: January 12th, 2021. From that point onwards, the much-loved software suite -- including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote -- won't receive any bug fixes, security updates and general technical support. The apps will still work, Microsoft confirmed, but you won't be able to install them on any new devices.
Microsoft's new Office app for mobile combines Word, Excel and Powerpoint
Microsoft's having a busy Monday morning, and for anyone that uses Office on the go, its new app might be the major gamechanger.
Microsoft drops one-off Office licenses from its Home Use Program
From Netflix to phone apps, tech companies love to chase that sweet, reliable subscription money. Microsoft is no different, joining the charge to sell its Office products as a subscription service. While users have traditionally purchased the Office suite as a one-off perpetual license, the company is pushing customers toward an annual subscription instead.
Microsoft drops the 'Online' name from its Office web apps
The next time you fire up any of the web versions of Microsoft's Office applications, you might notice something slightly different about them. Starting "relatively soon," Microsoft is dropping the "Online" branding of its Office Online suite and will refer to the web apps as simply Office. The decision means that the company's products like "Word Online" and "PowerPoint Online" will now simply be "Word" and "PowerPoint." The same goes for the rest of Microsoft's line of Office apps.
Excel quickly adds data from iPhone photos into spreadsheets
Microsoft Excel is making its "Insert Data from Picture" feature available on the iOS app. The AI-powered tool lets Excel users take pictures on their phone of data and convert it into a spreadsheet in seconds. The new function debuted at Microsoft's Ignite event last September and has already been released for Android. Combining a mix of image recognition and AI, it's a useful perk for both chronic and occasional Excel users that will eliminate hours wasted on manual input.
Microsoft's Office apps officially launch for (some) Android phones
Right, well that was fairly quick. Microsoft gave us a taste of how its Office apps would look on Android phones in a preview just last month, and now they're ready for public consumption. Word, Powerpoint and Excel are available for your delectation -- for free, no less -- in the Google Play Store right now, just with one big caveat. Those pesky prior limitations are still in effect here, so don't expect to run these things on a phone without at least 1GB of RAM and anything older than Android 4.4 KitKat.
UK government department swaps Microsoft for Google
For the longest time, the UK government built its systems around Microsoft software. That's still largely the case, but things have slowly changed as departments get to grips with the cloud, and companies like Google have planted their flag. The Register reports that Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has decided it's time to make a clean break and has embraced the search giant's cloud services, becoming the first major UK government department to shift away from Microsoft.
Microsoft reveals Office preview for Android smartphones
Microsoft has been enthusiastically rolling out touch-friendly Android (and iOS) versions of Office, even before it launches on its own OS. It just outed a preview version for Android smartphones, although this time, Windows did get it first. As with the tablet version, Microsoft said the apps marry the "familiar look, feel and quality of Office" apps -- including Word, Excel and PowerPoint -- to a touch-friendly smartphone experience. You'll be able to open documents not only from Redmond's OneDrive, but also via Google Drive, Dropbox, and a few other cloud services.
Microsoft makes Office for iPad free to use, starts testing Android tablet version
Considering how popular Office has been on the desktop, you'd assume it'd be the go-to productivity suite on mobile too. In fact, though, the company has made a few missteps: The iPhone app is watered down, and as nice as the iPad version is, you need an Office subscription to do any sort of editing. Fortunately, though, Microsoft is changing course: The company just announced that it will offer basic editing as a standard feature on the iPad, the same way it already does on Android and the iPhone. Keep in mind that you'll still need an Office 365 subscription to unlock certain advanced editing tools, but most of those are probably better-suited to business users anyway. Additionally, the company is beginning public beta testing on its first-ever Android tablet app, which will see a wide release early next year. The software, which includes standalone Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps, is still in development, but what we've seen so far suggests the apps have feature parity with the iPad suite. Also like the iPad app, it will include basic editing tools for free. You can sign up for the preview today, but it may take a while before you get a turn: Microsoft says it plans to add users gradually, with an eye toward testing a wide variety of devices.
The new Office for iPhone is everything it should have been on day one
I remember when Microsoft first came out with Office for iPhone. It was actually kind of exciting. Here was this thing that for years had only existed in the form of rumors and leaked documents. And there it was, at last: the killer iPhone app, ready to download. Or so I thought. Maybe I was expecting too much, but I came away feeling underwhelmed. That first version of Office Mobile was a watered-down gimp of a program, with pitifully few editing tools and an occasionally confusing layout (imagine having no way of knowing what size font you were using). Compared to some apps, like Google Drive, it wasn't that bad, but it still wasn't as feature-rich as Apple's own iWork suite. Worst of all, the software has received few feature updates in the 17 months since it debuted. Is this what we waited so long for? At last, however, Microsoft seems to have come to its senses. The company is getting rid of Office Mobile and replacing it with three standalone iPhone apps for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, just like on the iPad. In fact, because these apps share code with the iPad version, they arrive with the same robust feature set, along with a couple tricks designed specifically for the iPhone. In short, then, the new apps are everything the original Office for iPhone should have been.
