Microsoft Office Must Evolve to Remain Successful

Office has been a wildly successful product for Microsoft, but its continued dominance is far from assured as software moves to the cloud and employees bring their own tablets and smartphones into work.
On Monday, when Microsoft is expected to unwrap the next version of Office at a press event headlined by CEO Steve Ballmer, it will become clearer whether the company is propelling the suite forward for continued success or setting it up for failure. (Follow PCWorld's live coverage here.)
The impact of the latter on Microsoft as a whole would be catastrophic, since the ubiquitous suite of productivity applications is one the biggest profit engines for the company.

Microsoft's To-Do List

To beat back competitors like Google Apps, Office must evolve into an easier to use, tablet- and smartphone-friendly product, and one that doesn't penalize customers who access it via the cloud with big feature gaps and complicated setups.
Specifically, Microsoft must overcome its reticence to make an Office version for iPads and Android tablets. And it must beef up Office 365, its year-old cloud suite that includes online versions of Office, Lync, SharePoint, and Exchange.

iPad Enters Qantas Cockpits

Australian airline Qantas has announced that it will be giving its pilots iPads for use during flights.
Qantas has teamed up with mobile provider Telstra to bring more than 2200 64GB iPads to the cockpit to enable pilots to access operational information digitally, replacing paper charts, flight plans, manuals and forms for good, reports GeekZone.

Currently, Qantas prints around 18,000 pages a day, a figure that will be reduced to just 3000 pages with the introduction of iPads. Plus, the weight of the paper on board will drop by 44 pounds (20 kilograms).
Each of the iPads will have two apps that have been developed specifically for use by pilots. One app is for flight charts and the other is developed by Qantas itself for other flight information.

"The revolutionary capabilities of iPad technology, combined with the powerful customized apps, give our pilots the ability to replace cumbersome hard copies -- saving time, resources and costs," said Qantas Technical Pilot, Captain Alex Passerini.

Several other airlines have also been scrapping paper for iPads over the past couple of years, including Alaska Air.
It's not just pilots that are getting their hands on iPads, U.K. officials are also being given iPads as desktop PC and laptop replacements in order to reduce printing costs. Scientists are also getting equipped with Apple's tablet.
Qantas already provides iPads for passengers on board certain of its flights, as do several other airlines.
See also:
FAA 'exploring' the use of iPads and other devices during flights British Airways' iPad app improves customer service

Via PCworld 

Mozilla Clipping Thunderbird's Wings

Mozilla is halting development on its free email program, Thunderbird.

The company isn't killing Thunderbird--it will continue to support the email client, it just won't be innovating for the program.

"We have come to the conclusion that continued innovation on Thunderbird is not the best use of our resources given our ambitious organizational goals," Thunderbird Managing Director Jb Piacintino wrote in an internal letter sent to Mozilla employees Friday. The letter was published to the web by TechCrunch.

"We're not 'stopping' Thunderbird," Piacintino wrote. "But proposing we adapt the Thunderbird release and governance model in a way that allows both ongoing security and stability maintenance, as well as community-driven innovation and development for the project.