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Rumors Have Microsoft Office Making Its Way to iPads Soon

TMCnet Feature

March 19, 2014

Rumors Have Microsoft Office Making Its Way to iPads Soon

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By Joe Rizzo
TMCnet Contributing Writer

Satya Nadella (News - Alert) is an Indian-American business executive, engineer, and currently the chief executive officer of Microsoft. He was appointed CEO on 4 February 2014, succeeding Steve Ballmer. Previously, he was executive vice president of Microsoft (News - Alert)'s cloud and enterprise group. As such, he was responsible for building and running the company's computing platforms, developer tools, and cloud services.


Nadella is planning to host his first press event as Microsoft CEO next week. It seems that Microsoft has been inviting members of the media to a special cloud- and mobile-focused event in San Francisco on March 27th.

The expectation for this event is that Nadella will be discussing Microsoft’s "mobile first, cloud first" strategy. Nadella hinted at "mobile first, cloud first" shortly after he was named CEO last month. In addition, there should be some major announcements leading the way to the company’s Build conference in early April. Microsoft will unveil Windows Phone 8.1 at Build and the company is expected to fully detail its Windows 8.1 Update as well as hint at some future plans for Windows 9.

 Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans mention that the March 27th event will mark the introduction of Office for iPad. Last year in June, an iOS version of Office was introduced, since then it looks as if Microsoft has been working hard getting Office ready for the iPad.

The assumption, at this time, is that Microsoft will be duplicating the format of its Office for iPhone (News - Alert) software. This means that users can view Office documents such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel files on their iPad for free. However, if they want the ability to edit and make changes to the files, they will need to take out a subscription to Office 365.

Office 365 is Microsoft’s cloud-based version of the software that charges users a monthly or yearly fee instead of buying a single perpetual license. Until now Office 365 has only really been aimed at small businesses buying multiple licenses however, does this move to make Office for iPad available mean that we can expect to see more focus on individuals.

Word is that investors have been urging Microsoft to port its popular software onto iOS devices for years. There is a sense however, that the company has held off as long as it has because this type of move could undermine its own mobile OS.

While the launch of Office for the iPad may be imminent, some people believe the launch is somewhat too little, too late. The company may be losing upwards of $2.5 billion a year in revenue to competing products like Google (News - Alert) Drive, Quip and Evernote.

This is leading analysts to believe that customers are skipping Office and choosing one of these alternative document editing and syncing solutions instead. If they have already become familiar and comfortable with these products, they will be hard pressed to switch when Office for the iPad finally debuts.

Speaking for myself, one of the reasons that I have held off buying an iPad is what I mentioned above, but in reverse. I use Word and Excel and have been since Office was first introduced. For those who cannot remember, Bill Gates (News - Alert) introduced the first version of Office at the 1988 COMDEX.

If all goes according to the plan, I believe that we can expect to see Office for iPad sometime this summer. The vague, expected release date is for some time in the first half of 2014. 




Edited by Cassandra Tucker


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