Does Apple have any intention to make iPad more compatible with Industry standard de facto program's such as Microsoft

Seems to me it has nothing to do with Apple. They created iOS, and it is up to app developers to make their code and products work under that operating system. If Microsoft wishes to make a version of MS Office for iOS, there is nothing stopping them from doing so.

Have you looked at any other programs designed to work with MS Office files - like QuickOffice Pro or Documents to Go?

Also keep in mind that large and very complex document with embedded graphics and such will never work seemlessly on any current production tablet - the iPad and other tablets simply lack the processing power and the RAM to do that. And their cpu's and RAM are in turn limited by the available battery technology (try to pack too much processing horsepower into a tablet, and it would not run long enough on a charge to be useful).

Tablets are what they are, and what they are not is a full fledged computer replacement.

With all due respect, the burden isn't on Apple to accomodate other programs, the burden is on the other programs to develop apps to run on Apple's system. That's just how it is, and it's an attitude that runs across manufacturers. When Microsoft came up with Windows 7 and 8 the burden was on other companies to make their programs fit into the operating system, not on Microsoft to accomodate other software manufacturers.

I use Documents to Go with my iPad to be a go between the Word on my PC and accessing it on my iPad and the app works just fine.

Bandytales

I think if you are wedded to MS Office that there will always be a better experience by staying within the Microsoft ecosystem.

Here is a review of the Surface Tablet and as one might expect it handles MS Office. It might be worth doing more of a literature search or a test run of a Surface for the reasons MIchael cited.

http://bgr.com/2012/11/19/microsoft-surface-review-month-one/

Cheers