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At the 2013 Google I/O conference, the company addressed the problems with developing for Android – primarily that iOS developers are making a lot more money – and showed how it will help fix them.

Google’s Android team was clear in its appeal to developers at Google I/O 2013: Google is here to give developers the tools to build better apps and make money in the process. Canalys recently reported that the Apple App Store produced 74% of all app revenue, a key issue for Google in appealing to developers whose business models rely on paid downloads and in-app purchases. Google has introduced improvements to the Developer Console to increase developer revenue. Aligned with its revenue strategy are Google’s improvements in development tools, which aim to make it easier to develop Android apps, accommodate phone and tablet form factors, and design apps to generate international revenue.

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Google Play product manager Ellie Powers gave a presentation about new resources for Android developers at Google I/O 2013.

Google also wants to leverage Android’s international advantage over iOS. Outside of the U.S., Android has a significant market share advantage that Google can exploit in both directions. North American Android app developers who globalize their apps can find larger international markets than iOS developers. And the large international population of Android app developers can globalize their apps and sell into developed Western markets.

Ellie Powers, Product Manager for Google Play, touched on the issue of app developer revenues when she began her presentation.

“Today I’m here to tell you about five new features that we are adding to the Developer Console to help you get more users and make more money on Android.”

Optimization Tips analyze how an app is performing in the Play Store and makes recommendations, such as creating a tablet version or a specific language version to increase revenue.

App Translator Service is a translation service Google has made available through the Developer Console, which developers can use to change the language used within the apps so they can be sold in international markets.

Referral and Usage Tracking incorporates Google Analytics into the Developer Console. Referral Tracking measures the conversion efficiency of each promotional channel based on Play Store views, installs, and launch metrics. Usage tracking brings Android usage metrics into the Developer Console. Integrating both of these metrics into the Developer Console eliminates an extra Google Analytics account and different user “look and feel”experience.

Revenue Graphs provide a number of different cuts on revenue production based on time and country.

Beta Testing and Staged Rollouts clearly should have been at the top of Ellie Power’s list because of the enthusiastic reception it saw from the developer crowd. New versions of an app can be alpha and beta tested using the Developer Console. The tests are limited to Google Groups and Google Plus Communities, which protect the Google Play Store production app reviews from becoming tainted with potentially negative alpha and beta experiences while providing private feedback to product teams. When beta testing of an app is complete, the production version can be distributed based on a staged percentage rollout, reducing the risk of an overlooked bug affecting the entire user base.

Tor Norbye gave the crowd a taste of Android Studio in a new integrated development environment (IDE) based on IntelliJ, a widely adopted Java IDE. Tor led into the discussion with an example of how international apps are built. After an introduction to the Symantec features of Android Studio and a demonstration of the rendering and previewing of an app on multiple phone and tablet form factors, he closed with a demonstration of rendering an app in eight different languages into eight simulations so the developer could optimize the layout for different-sized text strings, a time-consuming manual process without Android Studio.

Google clearly stated to app developers at this I/O that it is attentive and committed to helping them develop apps more efficiently and make more money with Android. It is leveraging Android’s international advantage over iOS to generate global app revenues, while helping to grow the Google Play revenues it shares with Android developers.

Android Studio has not been released yet, but its name offers a promising future. It reminds me of Microsoft’s Visual Studio for building Windows apps. Developers who love and hate Microsoft are in agreement: Visual Studio is an incredible IDE for teams of developers to develop software efficiently. If Android Studio achieves a level development productivity near that of Visual Studio, Google will win the hearts and minds of mobile app developers.

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The activist hedge fund ValueAct has bought $2 billion of Microsoft stock and sees it as potentially the “largest cloud-computing company in the world,” with ValueAct’s help.

Microsoft is sitting on $74.4 billion in cash and short-term investments as of March 31. It is hardly at risk of going broke. So why is an activist hedge fund taking a big stake in the company, and what could that imply for management?

No one is saying Steve Ballmer will be out of a job tomorrow as a result of ValueAct’s $2 billion purchase of Microsoft stock, but it is interesting to hear ValueAct’s CEO talk about why he bought such a large chunk of Microsoft in the first place.

ValueAct says its investment strategy involves targeting companies that are “fundamentally undervalued, and then working with management and the company’s board to implement strategies that generate superior returns on invested capital.”

They will have their work cut out for them. Microsoft’s stock has been essentially flat-lined for almost a decade, which has more than a few institutional investors grumbling. One analyst on Seeking Alpha questioned whether Microsoft stock was good for anything other than its dividend. Ouch.

Where ValueAct wants to go is interesting. Bloomberg quotes ValueAct CEO Jeffrey Ubben as saying “In three to five years, which is our time horizon, we’ll stop talking about PC cycles and instead talk about Microsoft as the largest cloud-computing company in the world.”

Now compare that to Ballmer’s vision of “Windows, Windows, Windows.”

I’ve said in the past that Microsoft has better back-end prospects than endpoint/client. The Dynamics apps have been converted to on-demand, and now it looks like Office is making a smooth transition as well. I think Ubben has a more agreeable vision than Ballmer at this point.

With 60 million Microsoft shares in its possession, ValueAct doesn’t exactly have a seat on the board of directors, but it is in the top 20 of Microsoft’s largest shareholders. That list also includes Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Paul Allen, so let’s not roll out the guillotine for Ballmer just yet.

“They’re value investors who don’t mind being activists,” Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners, told Bloomberg. “If things aren’t working out, they would become more active.”

That probably won’t take long. The way I see it, Microsoft has until Windows Blue, aka Windows 8.1, to get its act together on the PC desktop. On the smartphone, it’s even worse. Windows Phone 8 is a very nice OS and a great alternative to Android and iOS, but too few people are buying and you can’t survive with two OEM partners (Nokia and HTC).

CNBC pundits have speculated that ValueAct would work with Ballmer and the board behind the scenes long before anything went public, which I understand. But history tends to show that investors like this do inevitably get involved. It might be a sale (not likely) or a change in executives or strategy, but eventually, major investors like ValueAct do make their presence known and felt. And no, it’s not in your best interests, it’s in the best interests of their investment. Just keep that in mind.

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General Electric has invested $105 million in the new company

Making good on a promise made in December, VMware and parent company EMC have launched a new company, called Pivotal, to offer an enterprise-ready data analysis platform as a service (PaaS) based on software from both companies.

Pivotal’s new services and newly retailored software packages will allow enterprises the ability to replicate the IT operations used by today’s “Internet Giants” such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon Web Services, said Paul Maritz, who is the Pivotal CEO and was the CEO of VMware from 2008 until 2012. Maritz spoke in a webcast Wednesday launching the new company.

The new company, Pivotal, also got $105 million investment from General Electric, which plans to use Pivotal’s technologies as part of its own set of analysis services to industry.
Maritz and Ruh
Stephen Lawson

Pivotal CEO Paul Maritz, left, and General Electric Vice President and Corporate Officer Bill Ruh spoke on Wednesday at Pivotal’s launch event in San Francisco.

Today, the large Internet services handle and analyze data far more efficiently than most enterprises do, Maritz said. “If you look at the way they do IT, it is significantly different than the way enterprises do IT,” he said. Specifically, they are good at storing large amounts of data and drawing information from it in a cost-effective manner. They can develop applications very quickly. And they are good at automating routines, Maritz said. “They used these three capabilities together to introduce new experiences and business processes that have yielded — depended on how you want to count it — a trillion dollars in market value,” Maritz said.

To replicate the way these Internet services use IT, today’s enterprises will require “a set of new applications that can be easily run on existing substrates,” Maritz said. Pivotal will offer a unified platform of a PaaS service and on-premises technologies to make this possible, he said.

The PaaS will run on top of the customer’s choice of an infrastructure as a service (IaaS), such as Amazon Web Services, or Microsoft’s Azure IaaS service. “We like to think of the current generation of infrastructure-as-a-service as the new hardware,” Maritz said.

Taxonomically speaking, Pivotal One will be broken into three sets of technologies. The cloud fabric will be based on the Cloud Foundry PaaS software, which can pull in IaaS services from providers such as Amazon and OpenStack. The data fabric set of offerings will include tools for analyzing data, such as Pivotal’s distribution of Hadoop, the Hadoop File System (HDFS), and real-time database services. The application fabric will provide tools for enterprises to quickly build and deploy their own cloud applications.

Pivotal is using a number of technologies developed or acquired by EMC and VMware. From EMC, Pivotal is using the Greenplum data analysis software. From VMware, it will use the Spring Java framework, the GemFire messaging platform, the Cloud Foundry PaaS software, and the Cetas business intelligence software. It will also be using various supporting technologies from the VMware vFabric packages of software to run cloud operations.

In addition to the PaaS, Pivotal also will continue to offer these technologies as stand-alone software packages, for use on premises. Many are rebranded under the Pivotal name. GemFire will be known as Pivotal GemFire, RabbitMQ will become Pivotal RabbitMQ, and so on. The company launched a Hadoop distribution, called Pivotal HD, in February.

Pivotal will use the GE investment to fund additional research. GE also will use Pivotal’s data analysis service for its own customers. GE has been ramping up a set of services around what it calls the industrial Internet, where transportation, energy, health care and other industries would benefit from advanced analysis of machine intelligence-generated data.

Incorporated on April 1, Pivotal will have over 1,250 employees, including more than 700 engineers. It will be owned by VMware and EMC, and, with its investment, GE has taken an ownership stake in the company as well. The service is expected to be generally available by the end of 2013.

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Rumors have begun circulating that Microsoft is working on a 7-inch version of its Surface tablet. I’m not convinced the company should even bother.

For the past couple of weeks, the web has been buzzing with rumors and speculation that Microsoft is working on a 7-inch version of its Surface Tablet. There has been no official word from Microsoft, of course, but if you look at current market trends, introducing a smaller tablet would seem to make a lot of sense. The popularity of the iPad Mini, Kindle Fire and Google’s Nexus 7 are clear indicators that consumers are interested in smaller tablets, and Microsoft surely wants a piece of the action.

Microsoft is in somewhat of a unique situation, however. Not only does the company already have a slew of hardware partners it probably shouldn’t anger any further, but it technically has two mobile operating systems to choose from, Windows RT and Windows 8. Although Windows RT and Windows 8 look similar, the former lacks compatibility with legacy x86 Windows applications, while the latter has somewhat steeper hardware requirements to run smoothly. And therein lies the rub.

A 7-inch Surface Tablet would be a tougher sell than the original.
If history is any indicator, and Microsoft is actually working on its own branded 7-inch tablet, it will most likely run Windows RT. Unfortunately, Windows RT hasn’t exactly been the darling of consumers or the tech community. In fact, many experts are calling for Microsoft to just kill off RT altogether and focus solely on Windows 8 for tablets. With Intel’s current x86-compatible SoCs already offering better performance and similar battery life than the ARM-based alternatives for Windows RT, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to continue expending resources on Windows RT. And if rumors hold true, Intel’s upcoming Bay Trail-based SoCs should only push RT further into oblivion.

The alternative is to produce a Windows 8-based, x86-compatible, 7-inch tablet. But I can already hear the tech press complaining now. They’ll say things like “Desktop mode is useless on a 7-inch tablet,” “You’ll be paying for features you won’t use,” and “There aren’t enough Windows 8 apps,” and so on. Whether everyone feels the same way or not, information and reviews full of caveats about a product don’t exactly instill consumer confidence and foster success.

Microsoft has taken such a beating lately that I’m of the opinion they shouldn’t bother with their own 7-inch tablet. Unless they hit an absolute home run on the hardware and market the device creatively alongside an enticing software promotion, there’s little chance the product will be well received. Microsoft should focus on bettering Windows 8 and its successors, and let its hardware partners introduce new tablet form factors.

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One patch may be the first ever for Web Apps 2010

Windows 8 and Windows RT are subject to critical vulnerabilities that will be addressed on Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday next week, both by virtue of supporting Internet Explorer 10.

The bulletin for the vulnerabilities addresses similar problems in all versions of Internet Explorer from IE6 through IE10. That means affected operating systems include XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

“This is one of the few bulletins this month that has a critical impact on the current code, hitting Windows 8, Windows RT and Windows 7 with a critical remote code execution issue,” says Paul Henry, a security and forensic analyst at Lumension. “We recommend that this bulletin be your first patch and you should update Internet Explorer while you’re at it.”

Browser vulnerabilities can lead to exploits being downloaded from infected websites that allow executing remote code on affected machines. The vulnerability affects all Windows desktops, “making it very much the bulls-eye for would be attackers,” says Alex Horan, a senior product manager at CORE Security.

There is second critical bulletin this month that affects Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. “This bulletin does not affect Windows 8 or RT, but will likely still impact a lot of people because many have not yet upgraded to those operating systems,” Henry says.

Seven more bulletins are rated important, which means they could be exploited to compromise user data. One of those affects Windows Defender, which is part of the security package in Windows 8 and Windows RT. “Windows Defender is an important security component for the new operating systems, so it’s a little concerning to see it impacted here, even if only at an ‘important’ rather than critical level. If you’re running either of those systems, I would patch this important bulletin first,” says Henry. It’s not clear what the issue is with Windows Defender.

Another bulletin rated important “may also represent one of the first reported vulnerabilities for Microsoft Office Web Apps 2010, which would be significant in and of itself,” Horan says.

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Zoolz offers ‘cold’ storage service with a lot of free space

A variety of cloud services offer free storage to get users signed up and on a path to become paying customers. Normally these free offers start at 2GB and range on up to maybe 10GB.

Zoolz, a new cloud storage services from online backup firm Genie9, is going beyond that and offering 100GB of free storage for a lifetime to the first 1 million users of its cloud-based service.

Sound too good to be true? Well there is a catch: Zoolz uses Amazon Web Services’ Glacier, which is a “cold storage” service, meaning that files uploaded to Zoolz’s cloud are not immediately retrievable. Users get an email within three to five hours of requesting the file alerting them that it is ready to be downloaded from the cloud.

Zoolz also offers a premium offering which does not use cold storage and provides instant access to cloud-based files. Zoolz uses Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) for that service, which starts at $20 per year for 100GB of storage.

[ MORE FREE CLOUD STORAGE: 12 free cloud storage options ]

Zoolz is aimed at supporting a wide variety of use cases, says Morgan Gary, a business development manager for the company. Included are complete desktop, laptop, network or external hard drive backups, or any variety of files, including documents, photos or videos. In the two months since the company has launched he says many photographers have used the service since it has been optimized to handle “raw” image files, which are higher-resolution images compared to traditional digital photos. The Zoolz interface shows thumbnail images of the raw files, for example.

The premium service starts at $1.66 per month for 100GB and ranges to 500GB of storage for $10 per month to 1TB for $20 and 2TB for $35 per month. The premium service allows users to share files, schedule backups, and provide instant access to the files stored in the cloud.

Zoolz was born out of Genie9, an online backup company that specializes in business backups, including entire desktops, laptops, Windows File Servers and Microsoft SQL and Exchange Servers. Zoolz is meant to be a completely cloud-based storage offering that incorporates both cold storage from Glacier and instant storage from S3. Customers could use these services directly, but Gray says a complicated setup process and work with application program interfaces (APIs) makes it difficult for the layperson to use. Zoolz is meant to be a “middleman” between the users and AWS’s storage services, he says.

When Amazon rolled out Glacier last year many viewed it at the time as a competitor to tape backup for businesses, but an ecosystem of providers have emerged to leverage the service and create products based off of Glacier. Pogoplug, for example, uses Glacier to offer an unlimited amount of cold storage to users for $4.95 per month.

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Shocking developments in the mobile enterprise race show the market’s incredible volatility, according to a new survey by Aberdeen Group. The survey looked at mobile app deployment plans by platform–Apple iOS, Android, Windows 8/Windows Phone and BlackBerry–covering both tablets and phones.

“The plans for mobile app deployment in 2013 were a big surprise,” says Aberdeen research director Andrew Borg. Aberdeen plans to release its official findings next week, but gave CIO.com a sneak peek.

The data shows Microsoft Windows Phone 8 and Surface tablets poised to make a profound leap, as CIOs hope to retake control of the mobile enterprise. Apple iPhones and iPads may be reaching a point of saturation. Google phones and tablets are holding steady, but will users let loose the reins?

As for BlackBerry, the future looks bleak.
Aberdeen surveyed 348 organizations about their mobile strategy in November and December last year. The chart above shows the percentage of respondents currently deploying apps on a given mobile platform, as well as the percentage of respondents planning to build apps on the platform for the first time in 2013.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s behind the numbers.

Microsoft, Don’t Call It a Comeback
Microsoft was the big winner with 35 percent of respondents planning to develop apps on the Surface tablet over the next 12 months, in addition to 8 percent currently deployed. Windows Phone fared well, too, with 25 percent planning to develop apps on Windows Phone, in addition to 26 percent already deployed.

“The data shows that IT is holding out hope that Microsoft’s mobile strategy will be well-integrated with their overall data center and cloud strategy,” Borg says. “You might say IT has been waiting for Microsoft to make its enterprise mobile play.”

Microsoft, though, might have already disappointed respondents. The Aberdeen survey was conducted late last year before all the criticism of Surface RT, well, surfaced and before the Surface Pro was even released. At the time, there was hope that Microsoft would deliver a completely integrated strategy.

But the Windows 8 user interface consistency from smartphone to tablet to desktop did not extend to the back end. In other words, the primary criticism of Surface RT is that the apps are not compatible with the rest of Windows 8. Surface RT is not in the same app ecosystem as Windows 8.

“IT and lines of business were looking for a point of consolidation and integration with backend services,” Borg says. “This lack of integration from IT’s perspective is a disappointment.”

Microsoft blew the branding and messaging opportunity, Borg explains. The average consumer didn’t grasp the difference between Surface RT and Surface Pro. Many simply and wrongly expected Surface RT to be a Windows laptop replacement.

It’s too bad, because Surface RT is a pretty slick device with a nice industrial design and user interface, Borg says. Among all tablets, Surface RT boasts the best integration with Office. It shouldn’t matter that it’s not tied to Windows 8 applications on the desktop. Apple iOS apps aren’t compatible with OS X, nor are Android apps with Chrome OS.

March of the Androids
Google Android smartphones and tablets are steadily marching into the enterprise. According to the Aberdeen survey, 23 percent of respondents plan to develop apps on Android tablets over the next 12 months, in addition to 40 percent currently deployed. And 17 percent plan to develop apps on Android smartphones, in addition to 55 percent currently deployed.

These numbers show incremental growth for the platform, which is nothing unexpected.
However, this doesn’t mean that Android will continue to plod along. The survey was taken before Samsung announced the Galaxy S4 smartphone, which is expected to be released in late April. For the enterprise, the most compelling feature is KNOX, a dual-persona solution at the kernel layer. If the dual-persona concept takes off, then Android platform adoption in the enterprise could spike.

But dual-persona acceptance on the smartphone is far from a sure thing. For starters, dual-persona has been in the market for at least a year and has had negligible adoption in the enterprise. While dual-persona allows end users to securely separate personal data from work data on a corporate device, we’re living in a Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD, world.

“With BYOD, the company is going to put its data on your device and borrow some of your assets that you bought–RAM, memory, processor–all of which may decrease performance of your device,” Borg says. “Will end users permit that? It’s unclear.”

Apple’s Microsoft Problem
Apple’s iPhone and iPad have been enterprise sensations, but there are signs pointing to challenges ahead. In the Aberdeen survey, 15 percent of respondents plan to develop apps for the first time on iPhone and iPad over the next 12 months, with 63 percent and 61 percent currently deployed, respectively.

“We’re a little surprised that the numbers show it to be slowing down,” Borg says. “Granted, three-quarters of the organizations are still developing for the platform, greater than any other platform. But it could be getting to a saturation point.”

Slideshow: Apple’s 15 Boldest Computer Designs, 1976 – 2012
As the dominant mobile enterprise player with the biggest app store and the largest percentage of developers, Apple seems to be sitting in the catbird seat. The danger is complacency and lack of innovation. Think: Microsoft during its reign on the desktop.

Today, iOS is looking long in the tooth. Microsoft and BlackBerry have more advanced operating systems. Samsung has shown innovation advancing the Android OS. Where art thou, Apple? iPhone and iPad apps don’t talk to each other, don’t share data. In comparison, Windows Phone 8 supports inter-app communication, which makes for a fluid user experience.

“If Apple does not innovate on the OS, it may impact enterprise acceptance and continued commitment to deploy apps on the Apple platform,” Borg says.

Storm Clouds Over BlackBerry
And then there’s BlackBerry. The Aberdeen survey showed a paltry 6 percent of respondents plan to develop apps on the BlackBerry PlayBook over the next 12 months, with only 15 percent currently deployed. On the BlackBerry smartphone, 5 percent plan to develop apps, with 49 percent currently deployed.

“This data does not speak optimistically for BlackBerry’s outlook,” Borg says. “There are definitely storm clouds over Canada.”

Borg does expect the smartphone number to creep up given the release of BlackBerry 10, which appears to be a solid product, but not by much. Meanwhile, the PlayBook outlook is looking worse, as BlackBerry hasn’t announced anything of significance with it.

The problem, of course, is that BlackBerry has lost its credibility. It didn’t keep its promises, in terms of timeframe delivery. BlackBerry 10 was delayed time and again until its launch earlier this year. The result is that businesses–once, BlackBerry’s biggest advocate–have all but abandoned the platform.

“From the data perspective, BlackBerry has significant challenges in 2013,” Borg says. “There’s a loss of momentum and a lack of confidence in their future from end-users. In addition, BlackBerry has isolated itself from advocates, including analysts. How this all will play out in 2013 remains to be seen.”

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Database administrators continue to grow beyond the commodity status they developed in the early 2000s, now earning the opportunity to shape strategy at many large companies. Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA) training helps MBAs learn how to convert their tactics into code, while helping DBAs support long-term platform migrations.

How MCDBA training enhances career value
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, database administrators often enjoy annual salaries above $66,000 and can expect consistently strong job prospects over the next 10 years. However, government statistics back up research by private analysts at Foote Partners, showing that database administrator certification on its own doesn’t automatically lead to instant career success. Salary surveys indicate that the highest paid DBAs blend their experience from other job roles with the kinds of skills developed during MCDBA certification programs.

For instance, a business professional with an MBA can use MCDBA training to understand the mechanics of the systems he or she uses to track a company’s information. Acting as a project manager or as a liaison between engineers and end users can result in significantly higher compensation than a peer would earn in a strictly administrative role.
Earning the database administrator certification

According to Microsoft, MCDBA certification targets professionals with one year or more of experience working with SQL Server and requires passing four separate exams:

Microsoft SQL Server Administration exam.
SQL Server Design exam.
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003 exam.
One elective exam from a list chosen by Microsoft’s education team, usually involving .NET or network infrastructure.

As experienced DBA professionals have noted in trade magazines like InfoWorld and SQL Magazine, Microsoft has retired many of the required exams for the MCDBA certification. Professionals switching careers into an information technology specialty may only have the option to pursue a vendor-neutral database administrator certification program. However, seasoned networking and infrastructure experts with previous Windows credentials can use the MCDBA certification to formalize their database skills.

Advantages of MCDBA certification
Though most database vendors share common elements of the Structured Query Language in use since the 1970s, each software company adds its own refinements and enhancements over time. These “forks” result in database platforms that can feel familiar to administrators moving from one vendor to another, but still require specific training and experience. Microsoft released versions of its SQL Server in 2005 and 2008, while competitors like Oracle released their own versions of SQL platforms in the years since. Still, many of Microsoft’s enterprise customers remain committed to platforms for years, if not decades.

Microsoft Certified Database Administrator training offers the biggest benefits to professionals in companies that require support for custom MS-SQL installations. Many of these companies understand that they can prolong the useful lives of their databases by leveraging today’s faster hardware and cheap memory upgrades. Therefore, databases running on platforms dating to 2000 and 2005 are common in enterprise environments. After a glut of MCDBA professionals hit the market in 2005 and 2006, the certification continues to grow in value at companies that rely on legacy support or that want to prepare for migration to a newer platform.

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Use this tool to determine the better deal — Microsoft’s new Office 365 subscription or traditional buy-now-use-forever licenses

Two weeks ago, Microsoft backpedaled from a sweeping change on how it licensed retail copies of Office 2013, deciding that it would, after all, let customers move the software from one machine to another.

That reversal mooted the original end-user licensing agreement (EULA), which had permanently tied “perpetual” licenses — those paid for once, with rights to use them as long as desired — to the first PC they were installed on.

And it again made for fairly straight-forward calculations when trying to decide the better deal between buy-once-run-forever copies of Office, and the rent-not-own deals that Microsoft wants consumers to adopt.

Office 365 Home Premium, which costs $100 per year — or $10 per month — includes the right to install a top-end edition of Office 2013 or the business-esque edition of Office for Mac 2011, on up to five Windows PC or Macs in a household.

The trouble with Office 365, however, is that once a customer has committed, he or she must continue paying the subscription fee or lose access to the software.

That’s so different from the way people have licensed software for decades that some have had a tough time wrapping their heads around the concept.

Computerworld has pitched in by comparing perpetual licensing and Office 365 subscriptions several times, and discovered that the most important variables are first, the number of licenses a customer actually uses — or needs, which may not be the same — and second, the length of time between Office upgrades.

To help consumers calculate which is the smarter move, Office 2013 or Office 365, Computerworld’s Online Managing Editor, Sharon Machlis, created a calculator that factors in three variables: The number of machines Office needed to be on, the time between upgrades, and the software required.

Microsoft Office price calculator
On how many PC or Mac systems do you want to use Office in your household?
With Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote
With Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook
With Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access and Publisher

How many years would you expect to use the above copies (if buying desktop licenses) before upgrading?
Because analysts have said the upgrade average is five years, Computerworld used that time span in its comparisons. But not everyone upgrades Office that often, or that infrequently. Some hold onto Office for ages — many still use Office 2003, which is slated for retirement next year — while others lust for the newest, and so are ready to ditch Office 2010.

Computerworld’s conclusion: Households that needed Office on four or five machines should steer for Office 365. But those that required one, two or three copies of Office were better off sticking with perpetual licenses of Office Home & Student 2013.

But those calculations had a flaw some saw as fatal: They did not account for what applications Office 365 Home Premium gave consumers.

The subscription includes a top-of-the-line version of Office 2013, one that includes not only Excel, Word, OneNote and PowerPoint — the quartet in the $140 Home & Student 2013 — but also the Outlook email client, Publisher and the Access database.

Yet some people need Outlook at home, others Access, in effect tossing a wrench into any calculations dependent only on Home & Student 2013.

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Cloud-based subscription service for Office 365 Home Premium offers good value and convenience

Microsoft has been dishing out various flavors of Office 2013 since November 2012, when enterprises with volume license plans got first access to the finished software. In mid-January, employees at those companies could buy a discounted copy as part of Microsoft’s Home Use Program. And Microsoft recently took the wraps off Office 365 Home Premium, which we took a look at.

Office 2013 is available at retail at prices ranging from $139 to $399 for use on a single PC. But Microsoft’s pricing model, which allows users to install Office 365 Home Premium on a total of five PCs, Macs or Windows tablets for $8.34 per month or $99.99 a year, is clearly geared toward getting individuals and businesses to adopt Office 365 services. (Watch a slideshow version of this story.)

Office 365 Home Premium includes downloadable versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access, and Publisher. And, in addition to the five PCs, apps can be temporarily streamed to other devices on demand or you’re able to do light editing with Web App versions of the software – both options don’t count against your license tally.

Office 2013: Everything IT needs to know

The math works out like this: If you’re part of a large family or an independent business person with multiple systems, Office 365 could save you decent money compared to the minimum $139 cost (Home and Student) of buying the software for each computer; further, at that price, you don’t get Outlook, Access and Publisher. And to make subscriptions more enticing, Office 365 Home Premium includes 20GB of SkyDrive online storage and 60 minutes a month of Skype international calling (together valued at about $160 per year).

And now some of the nuts and bolts. Office 365 Home Premium is technically a cloud service. You sign in to Office.com to manage your subscription, and documents are stored in SkyDrive by default. But the Office applications are still installed on your PC. The point Microsoft emphasizes is that the latest Office 2013 version will automatically download when you’re online – and the company is committed to a quarterly cycle of bug fixes and enhancements. Put another way, no more manually installing fixes, security patches and service packs – and reduced wait time for new features.

Easy to manage, easy to use

Getting started with Office 365 Home Premium is simple. I visited the setup website, entered my product key, logged in, and selected the option to install the software. After about 20 minutes, the full Office 2013 suite had downloaded and was ready to use.

The My Account page lets you install Office on additional systems, deactivate a computer, and perform other tasks, such as activating your Skype World minutes. It’s probably no surprise, but Office requires Windows 7, Windows 8, or Mac OS X version 10.5.8 or higher. Microsoft previously released Office for Windows Phone 8 (preinstalled on Windows Phone 8 handsets). However, the company is not talking about any plans for native Office apps on Apple iOS or Android.

Even so, I had good results editing Word docs and PowerPoint presentations on a third-generation iPad using the Web apps through Google Chrome browser.

Significantly, when you use Office – whether on a Windows PC, tablet or phone – formatting and styles remain intact between devices. I found documents retain their fidelity across hardware. Moreover, my default settings (such as fonts) were maintained no matter which system I used for editing.

Your main My Office page also serves as portal into your documents stored on SkyDrive. From here you also launch Office on Demand (Microsoft’s Click-2-Run technology) – a process that takes less than five minutes to download and install one application, such as Word. This could be valuable if you need to use a PC that doesn’t have Office installed. When you’re done, just close the application and it’s removed from the PC. Also notable, this process does not disturb any installed earlier versions of Office, such as 2010.
Sleek and simple design

Microsoft has been very aggressive in showcasing Office through various preview versions, so there weren’t any real surprises with the shipping of Office 2013 applications – mainly a few cosmetics to improve usability. Still, it’s worth recapping some of the major changes from Office 2010 and prior. Office 365 was made for Windows 8, and I tested Home Premium on a variety of desktop and laptops (both touch and non-touch) running Windows 8 Professional and Enterprise. Office 365 has the same beautiful design that’s clean and user focused – devoid of extraneous animations and screen clutter.

When run in tablet mode, applications have larger touch points and more streamlined ribbon menus that free screen real estate and improve usability.

One of the more valuable new features of Microsoft Word 2013, I feel, is the ability to edit PDF documents; Word makes content (such as paragraphs, lists and tables) act like Word documents. Read mode automatically reflows text into columns to fit the screen, which is great for small screens. I also found tap-and-zoom features helpful to enlarge tables and images within documents; you can also expand and collapse sections, which makes working with large documents easier.

Besides one place to store documents, I quickly found SkyDrive improves collaboration. For example, I provided colleagues with a link to one document and we could all contribute edits. Although Microsoft promotes this feature as useful for family members working on personal documents, such as a vacation agenda, there’s potential for sharing work documents. This feature seems a bit behind Google Docs, which permits live simultaneous editing by multiple people. In the case of Word, you have to save your document before you can see edits by others – but that’s a slight inconvenience given the superior formatting and other features of Word.

The revamped Excel does a better job learning your data entry patterns and auto completing the remaining information. Then, Excel suggests PivotTables for the best way to summarize your data. Additionally, I appreciated the way Excel recommends the best charts based on patterns in your data.

PowerPoint Presenter View was one of the first features Microsoft demonstrated last summer, and it continues to be one of the most valuable additions. When working with a second screen (such as a projector) this behind-the-scenes tool let me see upcoming slides and notes, while my audience viewed the actual presentation.

And co-authoring is possible with PowerPoint, just like Word. I worked on a presentation with the desktop Office software while a colleague made changes through the PowerPoint Web app in a browser – and the formatting of the final was perfect.

Access isn’t typically given a lot of credit, but it delivers some impressive ways to organize your life and business. Access 2013 opens existing desktop databases (ACCDB and legacy MDB files). When creating new databases, Access handles the complexities of building fields, rules, and relationships. The one disadvantage of Home Premium is that you can’t host your databases online; for that, you need Office 365 Enterprise, where the databases are published to SharePoint Online. For that reason, a product such as FileMaker would be more appropriate for putting personal-type databases on the web.
Apps to Go

It seems no cloud solution is complete without a supporting ecosystem. And much like Windows 8 has an App Store, Office 365 features an Office Store, which you access through your Office.com account. Once you select an app from the store, it’s quickly loaded into the supported Office product through its ribbon bar.

There’s a smattering of Apps for Office right now, most of them free, and the majority generally useful. For instance, the free Merriam-Webster dictionary works in Word, Excel and Outlook. But, like any store, some offerings have limited value. LegalZoom, for instance, only directs you to their web site, where you have to purchase one of their services.

With Windows 8, Microsoft proved it’s willing to take big risks – from extensive user interface changes to architecting the product for multiple form factors. The same bold moves are apparent with Office 365. The applications in this suite, already among the best in class, now operate easier and have some productivity improvements.

Microsoft is clearly no novice to cloud computing – with years of experience in e-mail (now Outlook.com) and Office 365 for business. The fundamental question is if consumers are ready (and are willing to pay) for the next leap and subscribe to Office 365 Home Premium.

In Microsoft’s view, the economic equation adds up to an easy choice, especially if you want the latest software and have multiple devices. And I generally agree. The company says it’s committed to rapid updates and feature enhancements – and has invested heavily in sophisticated systems to track bugs and help with rapid development. In itself, that’s representative of the new thinking that’s been happening within Microsoft for a while.

But for those with one or two PCs and who don’t need the latest features – and that may be a large audience – these potential buyers may be satisfied with older Office software, or Google Docs and other free alternatives. There’s also pressure from Box, Dropbox and similar cloud storage vendors. As a result, Microsoft’s success with Office 365 Home Premium is not a given, but the company will likely get a good number of users switching to subscriptions.

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