Microsoft adds chat capabilities to Office Online

Furthering online collaboration (and obviously taking cues from Google Drive), Microsoft is introducing chat feature to Word and PowerPoint online. Like in Google Drive, this means you can talk to your colleagues about a document or presentation you’re working on. It’ll even send you notifications for when you need to respond or wait for their comment to pop up on the sidebar. The feature will reportedly be rolling out in the coming weeks.

Source: WinSuperSite | Via: Engadget

Google brings Slides to iOS, adds Office compatibility to productivity apps

It took a while but Google has finally ported its Slides presentation editor and viewer to the iPhone and iPad. Along with the new app, the tech company also updated its Docs and Sheets apps to allow for Microsoft Office compatibility. This means you can open your Office documents in these apps. The Office compatibility is also available on Google Slides.

Source: Gigaom

Microsoft opens Office and SharePoint Store to new markets

Microsoft’s Office and SharePoint was only previously available to the US market. Now, it is open to 22 new markets with additional language support for French, German, Japanese, and Spanish. The countries with new storefronts include Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, India, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, Switzerland, and United Kingdom—with some of these countries having several language markets already.

All those using the new Office can access the Office and SharePoint Store within the Office app or through Office.com.

Source: Office News 

Breaking: MS Office comes to iPhone but 365 subscription is required and nothing for iPad

The much awaited Microsoft Office app has finally come to the iPhone but with caveats.  Users need to have an Office 365 account in order to use it, and there's no version for Apple's iPad, which is the mobile device that would most benefit from having MS Office running natively.

The reason for this could be that Microsoft Office is the key differentiator of Microsoft's Surface RT tablet which is an iPad competitor and which has the only version of MS Office on any mobile tablet. Giving the iPad a version of MS Office would instanly bring it one step closer to its post-PC aspirations but that might mean even less Surface RT sales for Microsoft.