Mobile App Connects Office 365 Components
Mobile App Connects Office 365 Components by UCStrategies Staff
The mobile application Harmon.ie 4.0 claims to enhance the use of Office 365 on mobile devices, including those powered by Android, BlackBerry, and iOS. With Harmon.ie 4.0 on their mobile devices, business users can create, edit, save, and share documents while running Office 365 components, such as Office Web Apps, Outlook, SharePoint Online, SkyDrive Pro, and Yammer.
“We want to let people work on Office 365 from mobile devices in ways they haven't been able to,” said David Lavenda, vice president of product strategy at Harmon.ie.
Currently available for BlackBerry and iOS, Harmon.ie 4.0 is sold via subscription. Monthly pricing starts at $4 per user. The Android version of Harmon.ie 4.0 will be available in Q3 2013.
According to CIO’s Juan Carlos Perez, Microsoft has received criticism for what looks like “limited mobile access to SharePoint.” For iOS and Windows Phone, Microsoft has a SharePoint Newsfeed app. The company has unveiled plans to release a version compatible with Windows 8 before the middle of the year. The Android version will come later on. Moreover, Windows 8 and iOS mobile apps for SkyDrive Pro are scheduled for release by mid-year. Only the SkyDrive Pro mobile app for Windows Phone 8 is currently available.
There is also no native iOS version of Office for business users who use their iPads for work.
Microsoft has been building up Office Web Apps, or the browser-based versions of Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, and Word. In addition, starting October 2012, the company has optimized the use of Office Web Apps for non-Windows-based browsers and platforms, such as the iPad and its corresponding Safari browser. Microsoft recently declared that it will be introducing more features to Office Web Apps, including real-time document co-authoring and the ability to run though a mobile version of the Chrome browser in Android-powered tablets.
Meanwhile, Harmon.ie touts that its mobile app delivers embedded Office Web Apps instead of mobile browser access. Office Web Apps documents and the editors of those documents are all cloud-based in Harmon.ie 4.0 – a scenario that supports data-less mobile devices. And for BlackBerry 10, a secure out-of-the-box offline support is included.
It is noteworthy that products such as Harmon.ie 4.0 are already approaching the enterprise sector, while Microsoft is still rushing to enhance mobile access to SharePoint and other applications in Office 365. (KOM) Link. Link.