Quickoffice 6.0 news, Q&A with Phil Spencer

Published by Steve Litchfield at 13:14 UTC, July 30th 2009

Steve Litchfield: Following the recent announcements, what is happening to your S60 products?

Phil Spencer: Quickoffice have been longstanding business partners with Nokia, delivering our office products directly to the S60 platform and to users of S60 smartphones since they first began shipping. More recently, Quickoffice and Nokia have worked closely together to agree a way to provide existing and future Nokia S60 users with easy updates to the latest Quickoffice functionality.

Is Office editing still relevant as our phones get smaller and smaller?

Yes, we believe Office functionality is becoming increasingly important to S60 users on the move. The ability to reliably view and edit office documents with complete confidence, including the latest Office 2007 file formats, is a common use case. Nokia and Quickoffice want to ensure S60 offers a 'best-in-class' mobile office experience to its current and future users in order to further cement its position as a leading smartphone platform.

You're changing things at Quickoffice, I hear. How are these changes being rolled out?

We are ensuring that users of currently shipping Nokia S60 phones have an easy upgrade path to the latest Quickoffice release.

For the following devices: Nokia E51, E52, E55, E63, E66, E71, E72, E75 and E90, we've worked with Nokia to be able to provide users with the latest Quickoffice 6 viewing and editing release, free of charge. From the middle of June 2009, to coincide with the Nokia E72 launch, users of these devices have been able to get the latest Quickoffice 6 releases (including today's latest update) as free upgrades via Quickoffice’s on-device delivery channel called Quickmanager™, part of the Quickoffice application.

For Nokia devices that ship with Quickoffice viewers only, the latest Quickoffice 6 viewers are now also available as a free upgrade via Quickmanager. Users of such devices can update their Quickoffice viewers for free with Office 2007 file support or, as before, optionally purchase the latest editing version as an upgrade.

How do users get these updates?

Users can get their free update immediately in Quickmanager. Quickmanager is Quickoffice’s secure software delivery catalog, built into every Quickoffice product. So, all users have it on their phones already. They just need to launch Quickoffice and select ‘Quickmanager’ or ‘Updates and upgrades’ from the menu. Users will be responsible for any network/data fees (if applicable – e.g., if they do not use WiFi) they may incur in the download process, but there will be no additional charges from Quickoffice to receive these updates.

Over time, the latest Quickoffice version will also begin to appear in Nokia firmware updates for various devices, but the updates will always be available in Quickmanager too.

Upgrade process on the Nokia N86.

Quickoffice 6, complete with new logo and icon.

Can you recap Quickoffice 6's main benefits, for new readers?

The latest Quickoffice 6 release adds many great features over the older versions that most users will find in their S60 handset right now (typically Quickoffice versions 4.1 or 3.8). These features include more advanced document viewing and editing (where applicable) functionality, ZIP file support, password-protected file handling, Excel 2007 chart viewing, multiple usability enhancements and much more. A particular highlight is support for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint ’97 through 2007 file formats.

The latest release available from today is a brand new update to the previous Quickoffice 6 product on offer – this version now adds the ability to view PowerPoint 2007 files for all users. Users of the Eseries devices listed above who already took advantage of their first free update from 15^th June onwards might also like to visit Quickmanager again and download the very latest editing build again, also for free.

Another highlight of the newest update is support for editing on S60 5^th Edition devices such as the Nokia N97.

Will the update be available in all languages?

Currently, to ensure we can reach as many users as quickly as possible, these first free updates are available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. A fully-localized update will follow in the near future (there is no fixed date, but users can check back in Quickmanager if they wish to receive this later).

What about future versions of Quickoffice?

The idea behind this new approach from Quickoffice and Nokia is that the latest viewing release will always be available as a free upgrade to Nokia phones which include our viewers, regardless of what version is in their phone’s initial firmware.

Certain Nokia devices will also ship with the ability for users to always receive the latest editing versions as well (as long as the device is still shipping). Other devices will ship with the latest editors available at that time, and users will be able to purchase further editing upgrades if they wish to receive the latest versions. Exactly what Quickoffice updates users are entitled to receive on each device will be made clear in the device's product literature, and will also be carried through to the Quickmanager offers tailored for each device.

What about users of non-Nokia S60 phones?

Right now, the changes here are the result of work specifically between Nokia and Quickoffice and are aimed at Nokia’s S60 phones only. We’ll continue to offer Quickoffice product upgrades and support to other S60 device users exactly as we do now. For example, the latest Quickoffice 6 release (which now supports editing on S60 5^th Edition devices) is also available for Samsung Omnia HD users to purchase.

Thanks, Phil!

All About Symbian, 30^th July 2009

Discussion

Quote:

Originally Posted by Berty Stumped up £11 to get the full program working on my N97. All well and good but the new V6 installs on my C memory so down to 16MB's even with the cache cleared on the browser.

:frown: This makes me very sad. Why is eveyone in the Symbian world wanting to use phone memory only all of a sudden? What is the point of 32Gb of flash drive if you can only install half the apps to the phone's (extremely) precious memory.

Quote:

Originally Posted by celios :frown: This makes me very sad. Why is eveyone in the Symbian world wanting to use phone memory only all of a sudden? What is the point of 32Gb of flash drive if you can only install half the apps to the phone's (extremely) precious memory.

I did have 22MB's before the upgrade so I'm thinking the original version is lurking on the C: drive somewhere. Anyone know where I can locate it, had a good look through using Y-Browser, nothing stands out!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Berty Stumped up £11 to get the full program working on my N97. All well and good but the new V6 installs on my C memory so down to 16MB's even with the cache cleared on the browser.

That's because the new version doesn't overwrite the old version, so you essentially have two versions on your phone, if for example you format your phone, you will get the old version back. I am assuming from the fact you only have 16mb left that you n-gage and Maps 3 as well.
16 mb is scary for c drive. You are going to run into problems at some point, are all your other apps installed on c or mass memory?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ratkat That's because the new version doesn't overwrite the old version, so you essentially have two versions on your phone, if for example you format your phone, you will get the old version back. I am assuming from the fact you only have 16mb left that you n-gage and Maps 3 as well. 16 mb is scary for c drive. You are going to run into problems at some point, are all your other apps installed on c or mass memory?

Yes I install everything I can on Mass Memory, only a few Java apps I have automatically go to C: I deleted the N-Gage app as it's rubbish, and have 3.1 maps on there. Not sure what else is cluttering things up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Berty I did have 22MB's before the upgrade so I'm thinking the original version is lurking on the C: drive somewhere. Anyone know where I can locate it, had a good look through using Y-Browser, nothing stands out!

You can't remove the original version. Quickoffice upgrades will never overwrite original, regardless of whether you use the built in updater or the standalone sis.

The only way to remove it is too hack your phone and remove all the files manually, it's hard work there are loads of files and you have to be very careful as it is not immediataly clear which belong to new and old.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Berty I did have 22MB's before the upgrade so I'm thinking the original version is lurking on the C: drive somewhere. Anyone know where I can locate it, had a good look through using Y-Browser, nothing stands out!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Berty Yes I install everything I can on Mass Memory, only a few Java apps I have automatically go to C: I deleted the N-Gage app as it's rubbish, and have 3.1 maps on there. Not sure what else is cluttering things up.

I have all apps installed to mass memory, and haven't bothered with ngage or maps 3, I have 53mb free on c at the mo. Gonna wait and see if they add maps 3 to firmware update.

Quote:

Originally Posted by celios :frown: This makes me very sad. Why is everyone in the Symbian world wanting to use phone memory only all of a sudden? What is the point of 32Gb of flash drive if you can only install half the apps to the phone's (extremely) precious memory.

The necessity to install to the C: drive is a technical limitation when upgrading ROM applications (you'll note the same behaviour on some Nokia applications too - e.g. Nokia Maps). So this isn't Quickoffice's (or any other developer's) desire to fill up your C: drive.

Incidentally there wont be two copies on C:, so you wont be able to find anything to delete. As I allude to above the original copy is on the ROM drive (Z:). The Quickoffice install is quite big (not surprising when you think about what it is doing).. I think the sis file is 4 MB ish - the install size is generally around 50% again (varies a lot though from app to app).

Unfortunate, but hopefully this is something that Nokia / Symbian Foundation can fix for future platform releases. Also, hopefully, a firmware update will help as the most recent versions of the C: hungry applications (N-Gage, Maps, Quickoffice etc.) should end up on the ROM drive.

Rafe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rafe The necessity to install to the C: drive is a technical limitation when upgrading ROM applications (you'll note the same behaviour on some Nokia applications too - e.g. Nokia Maps). So this isn't Quickoffice's (or any other developer's) desire to fill up your C: drive. Incidentally there wont be two copies on C:, so you wont be able to find anything to delete. As I allude to above the original copy is on the ROM drive (Z:). The Quickoffice install is quite big (not surprising when you think about what it is doing).. I think the sis file is 4 MB ish - the install size is generally around 50% again (varies a lot though from app to app). Unfortunate, but hopefully this is something that Nokia / Symbian Foundation can fix for future platform releases. Also, hopefully, a firmware update will help as the most recent versions of the C: hungry applications (N-Gage, Maps, Quickoffice etc.) should end up on the ROM drive. Rafe

Thanks for the explanation. That makes some sense (the face the original pre-installed version is in ROM). I was wondering about C: as the SEVEN email app also refuses to allow you to store messages anywhere other than C: - this may
be a result of problems with apps where data was stored on a removable memory card, which was subsequently removed and they have not updated their thinking (or their code) for the devices with built in solid state drives.

I got good support from Quickoffice and now have it installed. My free RAM (not C: space) is around 44Mb with SEVEN running and Quickoffice installed so I am fairly happy. Will give it a try over the next week.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yitwave After installing this, my C:\ fell from 30 mb (w/ ngage, ovi maps3, messaging) to 18mb. I uninstall it, but i can't access quick office, it doesn't leave me with my previous version.. what should i do? Can i just downgrade back and will it delete the downloaded file?

The only way you can go back to the old version is to format you phone using *#7370# and not restoring a backup, you will lose all your data so sync first.

Although as Rafe says the original version is on rom z drive, there are a number of files that are written in the private and sys drives on c, deleting them gains about 1 mb back, but you need to hack your phone and it is not something I would recommend.

It you have previously upgraded from version 4 to version 5 and then 6, you will actually have two copies on c, as well as the one on z, as version 6 doesn't overwrite 5 even if you installed it as an upgrade.
In this case hacking and deleting files will give you back about 5mb, but it is much safer in this case to format and upgrade direct from 4 to 6

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