Microsoft Office has been freed to rival platforms: iOS iPad, iPhone and Android.But Apple will still take a 30% cut off Microsoft for subscriptions to Office for iPad.
After weeks of rumors, Office for iPad app was launched in San Francisco, yesterday, which runs Office 365 suite including Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Microsoft says this release for iPad is a step further in its ‘mobile first and cloud first’ approach, championed by its new CEO.
Microsoft built Office 365 for iPad’s ecosystem specifically, something which Apple Insider also noted in an early test.
“This isn’t simply Office on another device. We thought a lot about what people want to do when they’re on their tablet, iPad functionality, and touch-first when we were building Office for iPad.
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“We reimagined Office on the iPad, while retaining what people love about Office,” wrote Microsoft’s John Case on a blog.
Apple confirmed to Re/Code that it would be taking one third of the subscriptions fee from the app, available on iTunes.
Microsoft are keen to expand its Office user base via ‘freemium’ model.
Its free to view Office docs on iPad but a subscription will cost US$99 per year, or $9.99 a month if users wants to edit docs, but can get a free 30 day Office 365 trial.
But its not just iPad that is getting some Office 365 lovin’.
Microsoft today unleashed Office Mobile for iPhone and Android phones, for free. Mobile users can also edit their docs on the smartphone app.
“Today is the first step on a journey to make this a great innovation vector for all of Microsoft,” said Microsoft CEO Satya at the launch.
“We are committed to making our applications run cross-platform.”
Over a billion people use Microsoft Office but given Apple’s massive usership, it could get much bigger.
