Office on an iPad? YES - and Windows too.

If you been searching for the fountain of youth, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or a way to run Microsoft Office on a tablet, be careful what you wish for. There are now several ways to run full versions of Office on an iPad. I've tried OnLive and CloudOn and they were both easy to install and easy to use and worked like Windows/Office would work with a ten inch screen, virtual keyboard, no mouse and a moderate speed Internet connection - not very well actually.

 

Imagine creating an Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation on a very small screen. Functionally they seemed to work since you are using full Office applications in the cloud. The tablet is a dumb terminal as old timers would say. If you were to develop a great PowerPoint presentation in your office with a fast Internet connection and then try to show the presentation in a location with slow or no Internet access, you would be in for big trouble. For a good review of OnLive check out this column by Walt Mossberg. Because they are free and easy to try, go ahead and try them out.