Report: Apple and VMware planning cloud-based iWork
updated 08:45 pm EDT, Mon October 22, 2012
Appliation running in data centers served to iPads with VMware
According to reports and sources familiar with the matter, Apple is readying an iOS version of iWork hosted in the cloud. Joining them in the effort is virtualization expert VMware. The Pages, Keynote, and Numbers implementation would integrate with VMware's Horizon Mobile's partitioning scheme to isolate personal and business usage of employee-owned devices.
VMware's virtual desktop software is said to be the lynchpin for the effort, with the cloud-hosted versions of iWork running on Apple infrastructure at one of its data centers. The iWork porting effort is a separate endeavor from predominantly data storage-related iCloud, CRN reports. Apple's last major iWork update came in 2009 with the release of iWork.com, which was closed in July of this year, in favor of Documents in the Cloud.
"Apple wants Pages to be seen as a replacement for Microsoft Word, Numbers as a replacement for Excel and Keynote as a replacement for PowerPoint," one source familiar with the project told CRN. Apple has not responded to a request for comments on the report.
Forum Regular
Joined: 08-27-08
At first, I was a little concerned about iWork on the cloud. However, when I am forced to use a PC at work, it's great to know I can open iWork files by going to the web.