Gadgetory

welcome to cnet's inside scoop I'm Charlie Cooper I'm here today with my colleague Josh Lowensohn and Josh today the topic is Microsoft parenthetically microsoft made some news for us today announcing that windows 8 will become available on october 26th now earlier in the week you were at a press conference downtown san francisco microsoft also announced that office which is one of its cash cows will become available but there was a bit of non news news why don't you tell us about it sure i mean the big missing details what happens to other platforms offices we know it has always been something for Windows but there's no denying that companies like Apple and companies like Google have kind of come in from the sides and really taking up some of Microsoft's business so office the new office as we know it is an answer to that partially but there's still the unanswered question of what happens these people are using tablets and non windows devices to to get their work done so if you're an iPad user you're out of luck for the time bein that's pretty much the the vision that Microsoft has not really laid out for people now is this more of a question of the technology was just too difficult to manage or are we talking more of a business marketing angle in that Microsoft has the new surface tablet which is it's relatively new entry into this this market a market dominated by the iPad I think it's safe to say only Microsoft knows its strategy for what it's doing but you can also look at the the upcoming crop of Windows tablets that are coming up and assume that they really want to make a case that if you want office you need to buy a Windows 8 tablet or a good reason to buy it is to have the specialty software that you can't get on any other platform now if you are an iPad user and you're just dying to get your hands on something that would have office like functionality if you can't wait what do you do I mean the truth is there have been alternatives you have companies including Apple which have come out with single productivity suites and apps that let you do a lot of things that you could use office for there's also alternatives that stream microsoft office too your iPad or Android tablet for instance they give you that same experience through a touchscreen so it's not that people can't get it they just can't get it from Microsoft and this as far as your understanding is a question of when rather than if I think so and I think at some point microsoft does need to acknowledge the fact that more tablets that are out there at least for now more touchscreen devices or on other platforms you have Android you have iOS that's how people are doing work down and there's no ignoring that segment and for Microsoft he's also you know a huge software company that's how they started that's how they're going to continue they can't ignore it so this iPad thing safe to say it's going to stick around for a while yeah that's a safe bet thanks Josh for Cena it's inside scoop I'm Charlie Cooper