office

Google's Quickoffice comes to Android, iPhone

Some competitors would figure if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. But when it comes to Google's strategy for competing with Microsoft's productivity suite, the company is trying to do both in a way.

Last night, Google released Android and iPhone versions of its Quickoffice software for handling Office files. The software, which lets people view and edit Excel, Word, and PowerPoint files, runs natively on various devices the way Office does, not in the cloud the way Google Apps does.

The software, available to customers of the company's Google Apps for Business service, is on … Read more

Dell cites uncertain prospects for PCs, Windows 8 in SEC filing

Dell painted a somewhat bleak depiction of its prospects in a recent SEC filing.

In a 274-page filing on Friday, the PC maker indicated market and product challenges on several fronts. In the filing, Dell makes a case for accepting a $24.4 billion offer to go private so it can be in a better position to deal with the myriad challenges facing the company.

Those included "the deteriorating outlook for the PC market as a result of, among other things, smartphones and tablets cannibalizing PC sales," according to the filing.

The SEC filing also cited "the … Read more

My Google spreadsheet fail

I'm a cloud-computing, Chrome OS fanboy for the most part. But today was one of of those days I was glad to have old-school Mac and Windows PCs lying around my home office.

I'm no power user, but Google Docs suits me for word processing, while Google Sheets works fine for creating spreadsheets. However, when it comes to importing and editing files from the incumbent power, Microsoft Office, Google just isn't meeting even my low-end needs.

Google handles such documents -- in either the older .doc and .xls formats, and the newer .docx and .xlsx formats -- … Read more

Office 365 and Yammer integration: What's coming

On March 19, day one of Microsoft's annual Convergence conference, company officials shed more light on how Yammer's enterprise social-networking technology will be integrated into Office 365 and SharePoint in the coming year-plus.

Microsoft officials originally shared a road map regarding this integration in November. But today, officials provided more dates and more details around the integration of Yammer feeds into SharePoint.

Last fall, Microsoft officials said in the "immediate future" Yammer and SharePoint would be unified via a single ID/sign-on, shared document-management capabilities and feed aggregation. In the longer term, the Softies said, the … Read more

Organize your March Madness pool with Office Pool 2013 for Mac

During the time leading up to March Madness, many offices across the country organize their own pools. With OfficePool 2013 for Mac, users can set up tournaments and make their picks, but with functions below those available with similar Web-based services.

OfficePool 2013 is available as a free trial version with a time limit; the full program is available for $12.00. There was no native installer, but the program downloaded and installed quickly. While OfficePool 2013 for Mac came with no instructions, setup is fairly intuitive for those who have used similar Web-based applications. Support exists for downloading current … Read more

HP's Autonomy acquisition probed by U.K. regulators

Hewlett-Packard has a way of quietly announcing its dealings with Autonomy in its annual and quarterly regulatory filings.

In its quarterly report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today, the company announced that the U.K. Serious Fraud Office has launched an investigation into the alleged irregularities of HP's acquisition of Autonomy.

Here's what HP wrote in its filing:

As a result of the findings of an ongoing investigation, HP has provided information to the U.K. Serious Fraud Office, the U.S. Department of Justice and the SEC related to the accounting improprieties, disclosure failures … Read more

Microsoft changes Office licensing, allows transfer to new systems

Microsoft has changed its license agreement for its Office 2013 productivity suite, which now allows you to transfer serial numbers to new systems and activate it to allow the software to work.

Office is one of the more popular (if not required) programs for many activities, so having it on a system is often quite convenient to have; however, Microsoft has had an ongoing licensing restriction with its latest Office versions that prevents you from activating a previously used serial number on newer systems, even if you have uninstalled the software from prior systems. This setup obviously frustrates those who … Read more

Microsoft offers students three months free of Office 365

Microsoft is dangling a new offer to get students to try its Office 365 University software.

As of today, students with a qualifying .edu e-mail address can register to receive three months free of Office 365 University and an extra 20GB of space for their SkyDrive online storage. Share the offer on Facebook and you'll get an additional three free months of Office 365.

Geared for college students and teachers, a license for Office 365 University costs $79.99 for four years and is good for up to two PCs or Macs. The educational suite includes the same applications … Read more

Microsoft to patch critical holes in IE, Office, Silverlight

Windows users will get the usual round of security patches from Microsoft next Tuesday.

Among the seven fixes due to roll out March 12, four are rated critical, which means they address flaws that could let an attacker execute malware on a remote PC by steering a user to a malicious Web site or e-mail link.

The patch for Internet Explorer is designed to shore up all versions from IE6 to IE10 across all iterations of Windows from XP to Windows 8 and RT. The patch for Microsoft's Silverlight, a browser plug-in that can display online videos and other … Read more