As part of the massive Windows 10 event today, Microsoft showed off for the first time Office for Windows 10, a completely universal and touch friendly version of Office that will be coming to your smartphone, tablet and PC. It means that the Office experience, no matter which device you are using, will be the same, touch friendly and equally powerful. Finally!
In the sake of full disclosure, I’ve been plenty vocal about the Office experience in Windows Phone 8.1. It sucks. There is no sugar coating it and I’m sure that many of you reading this will be in violent agreement with me. There are so many things to pick apart on Office for Windows Phone that you can’t just focus on one really. It just is so, so bad.
Office for Windows 10 is going to fundamentally change this for the better. First, no matter if you are on your tablet or smartphone or PC, the experience is going to be the same. You will have the familiar ribbons so formatting and layouts can easily and efficiently flow from device to device. In other words, you won’t be limited to a subset of formatting features because you are on a smartphone. Even little things like your recent documents will follow you from device to device. You can kind of get there today with OneDrive but no 100%. You will with Windows 10. This again further cements the “One Windows” mantra of Microsoft and the OS being a service.
Equally as important is the fact that Office for Windows 10 will be touch friendly on touch devices. This is something that is downright painful on devices today in some cases. I for one have all but given up trying to use Outlook 2013 on my Toshiba Encore 2 tablet. It just isn’t touch friendly enough for the 8″ screen. That will change in Windows 10 for the better.
That’s just a brief description. There are significant changes coming around wireless printing in Office for Windows 10, Miracast support, accelerated and improved PowerPoint transitions and a lot more we haven’t even seen yet.
We probably won’t see Office for Windows 10 for a while but the fact that Microsoft is make it clear their direction on this version is hugely important. Finally we can expect an Office experience on touch devices that isn’t painful. Or sucky.
