Office Web Apps and Android tabletsĪ recent post on the Office 365 blog by Amanda Lefebvre entitled, " Office Web Apps: More Office, more collaborative, more devices," makes this promise about future Android support in Office Web Apps: The heart of a successful Microsoft mobile strategy could be mobilizing their cloud apps for the major mobile device platforms, not just in the Surface tablet and Windows phones. Office 365 and SharePoint, in particular, still require too many mobile access workarounds and the necessity of third-party apps. Microsoft, as a company, needs to separate their platforms and devices to become device agnostic, which reflects the reality of today's mobile workforces, BYOD, and COPE. The larger point here is perhaps not a SharePoint deficiency but a deficiency in Microsoft's overall mobile strategy. I'm sure that harmon.ie will do a good job of transferring over the lessons they've learned about SharePoint mobile access on iOS to Android.
OFFICE 365 ACCESS RUNTIME FOR ANDROID
The next Office 365 Android app to watch for is harmon.ie for Android set to launch in third quarter of 2013. Figure A shows SharePlus Lite ready to login to Office 365: So, I recommend testing the app thoroughly with the SharePoint sites in your Office 365 implementation that require mobile access. While writing this post, I did run into some authentication issues with SharePlus Lite after it had been working perfectly. Its user experience is consistent with the SharePlus iOS app.
The Lite app lets you read documents and navigate SharePoint team sites. Two current bright spots for Office 365/SharePoint access on Android right now are the free SharePlus Lite app and the SharePlus app for $19.99 (USD). My tests to login to a SharePoint Online team site from my Android tablets were so unsatisfying that I'll spare you the screen captures. SharePoint Online is a major element of Office 365, and at the current time, mobile Chrome doesn't have native support for SharePoint. Unfortunately, it seems as if Lync on Android borders on being an afterthought in an age where tablets are increasingly serving as a unified communications hub for mobile workers. Throughout the search, I ran into varying levels of incompatibility issues and login errors to my Lync Online account. My search for third-party app options to get past my Android/Lync compatibility issues was equally disappointing. This lack of compatibility could certainly stand in the way of BYOD planning and might be a consideration if your organization owns a significant amount of Android tablets, so set your expectations accordingly if Lync access from an Android tablet is a requirement for your organization.