Microsoft released additional details about Office for Windows RT

[racer]

Microsoft has released few details about the Office suite that will be deployed on ARM architectures.

On its official blog, the Office team returns on the innovations that will be embedded in the version of Office designed for the ARM architecture and is deployed by default with Windows RT. Microsoft explained that the goal was to provide a rich interface on x86 system while taking advantage of the characteristics of devices on ARM with longer battery cycle, with an interface optimized for multipoint connection 3G, SSD 16 GB or 32 GB of and at least 2 GB RAM.

Called Office Home & Student 2013 RT, this version will include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. David Brodsky and Josh Pollock, respectively responsible for the testing and development, added that, with Windows 8 it is no longer necessary for the software to reactivate via the network connection as defined in the background, and would result in fewer instructions sent to the CPU and therefore give a longer battery cycle. Moreover, whereas in Office 2010 applications would sometimes use the CPU more than 1000 times per minute, these interactions were reduced by 95%. Some items, such as flashing cursor, however, require sending an instruction. To optimize battery cycle, the interrupt will blink if the user does not interact with any of the Office RT applications.

The presence of an SoC (system on chip) involving the CPU, chipset, graphics, and networking components would also optimize battery cycle without analyzing the power of a standalone video card and adapt these performance within the Software. The editor adds that some information is directly stored in the cache thus avoiding any further calculations to display content on the screen. Based on the observation that ARM devices generally have a SSD of 16GB or 32GB, Office does not include all available models but only those commonly used, others are available for download. In addition, Office RT does not include all the default languages ​​(for automatic corrections or display of the user interface), but it is still possible to download additional languages. Finally, since the Windows RT tablets may be compatible with 3G networks, that can provide an alert when Office applications attempts to access the network, for example to retrieve a model or perform a backup of storage space online on SkyDrive.

However, Office Home & Student 2013 RT does not carry all of the features available on x86. So Microsoft has removed the macros, add-ins and features based on Active-X code or third parties. For example, it is not possible to embed a Flash module within a PowerPoint slide. Media formats are limited to their latest version and Equation Editor 3.0 was shipped in a previous version of Office, the calculations can not be edited, but merely consulted. Insofar as the mail client Outlook is not built on Windows RT, it will go through the application delivered by default for sending documents. The team adds that if we can use PivotTables, QueryTables, Pivot Charts in Excel 2013 RT, it is not possible to create data models. Other features that are not available on a Windows RT tablet include audio recording in PowerPoint and research media inserted into documents, or import a scanned file in OneNote 2013 RT.

[Damiano]

So this Office for Windows RT will be available in November and its additional language packs by January 2013? This Office for Windows RT is developed on the basis of the code in the desktop version of Office. But it is still yet to be know at what prices this will be offered and what about the students package?