We may have to wait until spring/summer 2014 to see Office in Modern UI
One of the most conspicuous absences among Windows 8 apps is the lack of Modern UI versions of Office It&39;s known that Microsoft has a project under the name of Gemini to port the Office suite of tools to touch devices. The problem is that we may still have to wait a few months to see the results."
That is at least what can be deduced from the latest information they have collected on ZDNet. As Mary Jo Foley writes, Microsoft's delay in providing Modern UI versions of Office, as well as other touch-based versions for the iPad and Android tablets, could be due to both a new product strategy and internal Redmond policies.
"Apparently Gemini does not revolve only around the development of Office touch applications for Windows 8, but on the idea of bringing the office suite to all possible platforms. Said project would consist of a series of updates, the first of which would bring Modern UI versions of the main Office tools: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote . The problem is the enormous amount of work involved."
Currently existing Office applications for iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone do not share the same core as the desktop suite. Therefore, to adapt Office to touch devices such as tablets, in Redmond they have been forced to redo the applications practically from scratch. The Office team has also had to figure out how to adapt an interface initially designed to be controlled with keyboard and mouse to tactile environments
And the challenges do not end there. The greater variety of screen sizes in which Office would have to work, adapting the office suite to the cloud or taking advantage of the new forms of synchronization between devices that it allows are some of the additional problems to overcome. In the end, the sum of all that work seems to be the main reason why we may not see Office in Modern UI until spring/summer 2014
It is not the first time we hear of these dates. From then on, the plan seems to be that new Office applications become the core of the suite Desktop versions will continue to exist, but Microsoft could focus all attention in the new versions to try to build a set of office tools that work consistently between all types of devices and systems.
Via | Neowin | ZDNet In Xataka Windows | Ballmer champions the Windows strategy on all devices and on all systems
