“Microsoft product manager Petr Bobek has confirmed that the software maker is planning to release native iOS and Android versions of Office 2013 next year. Speaking at a press event in the Czech Republic earlier today, Bobek told Czech site IHNED that native apps will be made available from March 2013.” Smart move. There’s money to be made here, but I am wondering what kind of functionality they’re going to reserve for Windows users.
This is big news, the Microsoft business practice has always been to feed the ecosystem. Office stood up on its own, but has always been a driver for Windows adoption.
Targetting OS-level competitors highlights a shift in thinking high up within Microsoft, and seems like a really good sign for the future.
Microsoft is trying to move office to a subscription model. I think they’ll probably let users use any device they choose as long as they pay for the subscriptions. Sort of like the Spotify or Netflix of the office productivity world.
That absolutely makes the most sence. But, and here is a big but, how will they distribute them? Apple requires 30% off the top of any purchase price plus a portion of subscription revenue and ad revenue. With Android, they could just host it on Microsoft.com, or even in the play store and do whatever they want with it.
Apple and Microsoft are very close partners. They will most likely strike a deal.
Edited 2012-10-10 17:20 UTC
Although Apple’s partnerships do seem to have a habit of turning sour, such as the ones with Samsung and Google.
Good businesses focus on making money.
A friend of mine once told me, there’s only 2 kinds of relationships in this world
1) win-win
2) lose-lose
If you’re going to have a relationship with someone, make sure it is win-win. Otherwise it will or eventually will be a lose lose.
If Microsoft is going to engage in a relationship with Apple, and they want to make money, they will make sure it is Win-Win. Apple gets a nice cut. Microsoft gets a nice cut.
You can only hope Balmer keeps his eye on the money.
Yes, the situation with office editors is pretty pretty pretttty shitty on mobile platforms, however I doubt they’ll have too many fans if they continue with the ridiculous (at least for me) pricing; either that or it will be heavily pirated, as it happens with PCs – although in recent years I notice more and more people install Libreoffice. Nice!
Talking of which, myself I’m still waiting for Libreoffice, either as native app on Android or as a web service/frontend, the latter would be super-sweet!
It’s on their radar.
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/02/libreoffice-developer-shows…
Try Softmaker Office for Android. Their Windows and Linux versions have *flawless* MS Office compatibility (no macro recorder though), so I assume the Android version also scores high on that (cannot check it myself due to having no Android devices).
Indeed a good move in many regards.
I think we see in the future a growing OS fragmention. While the eyecandy and underlying OS becomes a matter of taste, will the “essential” apps for productivity a necessarity. This specifically in regard of devices like Surface AND their competition. There is already a MS Office suite for Mac OS for some time now, so why not Android and hopefully other platforms (I see Solaris there).
Solaris? You’d probably have better chances expecting a Haiku port…
Update: Microsoft has released the following statement on the matter:
The information shared by our Czech subsidiary is not accurate. We do not have anything further to share at this time.