Microsoft's next surprise is free Office for iPad, iPhone, and Android

By +Frank B.
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Grand Master

+Frank B. Subscriber²

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Microsoft's next surprise is free Office for iPad, iPhone, and Android

There's no such thing as a free lunch, or is there?

 

Microsoft's Office suite for iPad, iPhone, and Android is now free. In a surprise move, the software giant is shaking up its mobile Office strategy to keep consumers hooked to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. Starting today, you'll no longer need an Office 365 subscription to edit documents or store them in the cloud. The move comes just days after Microsoft announced a strategic partnership with Dropbox to integrate the cloud storage service into Office across desktop, mobile, and the web. You can now download Office for iPad and store all your documents on Dropbox without paying Microsoft anything at all. Microsoft is also releasing a brand new iPhone app today, alongside a preview of Office for Android tablets, all with Dropbox integration.

 

Microsoft's plans might sound crazy to most, and at first glance it's easy to come to that conclusion, but the company argues it's a matter of moving its free web apps to mobile. "It?s an extension of the strategy that we?ve got," explains Microsoft's head of Office marketing Michael Atalla. "It?s not a total strategic shift, as much of an extension of the existing strategy." Microsoft offers free Office apps online, and Atalla argues that recent development model changes inside Microsoft have allowed the company to open up editing functionality to mobile clients. "We?re taking that same user experience we provide online to the native apps of iOS and Android. We want to make sure that our customers can be productive across all the devices they have."

 

While consumers using Office mobile will be able to access the apps for free, Microsoft isn't extending this free functionality to businesses. An Office 365 subscription will be required to edit documents that are stored on OneDrive for Business or Dropbox for business, a clear sign of how Microsoft will continue to generate money from the thousands of businesses that rely on its productivity suite and cloud platform. "There?s still premium value that we?ll add on top of that," says Atalla. "There will still be subscription value, most clearly and easily identifiable in the commercial space, but also in the consumer space around advanced authoring, analysis, presentation, and unlimited storage with OneDrive." Microsoft is also restricting some chart element customization and track changes to paid customers, making them premium features.

 

Source: The Verge

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Grand Master

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It was only a matter of time for this to arrive. Microsoft arrived so late that the market has largely moved past them so they need to try and pull people back in.

Weird.  Could have sworn I downloaded Office for free on Android months ago.

The download has been free since inception, but anything beyond viewing Office documents was limited to those with an Office 365 subscription.

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The download has been free since inception, but anything beyond viewing Office documents was limited to those with an Office 365 subscription.

 

Yep; without the subscription the app was pretty useless when comparing to other Office suites that offered far more then viewing docs.

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Arachno 1D

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Weird.  Could have sworn I downloaded Office for free on Android months ago.

The app worked on my Android mobile but would not allow install on a tablet, I hope its now possible to use on larger devices.

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Grand Master

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The app worked on my Android mobile but would not allow install on a tablet, I hope its now possible to use on larger devices.

Read the MS announcement - they released a version tailored for Android tablets.

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Arachno 1D

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Yep just read it Frank looks like a beta at the moment and full release next year.

 

 

Thank you for your interest in the Office for Android tablet preview. Please complete the required fields below and we will be in touch soon to let you know if you have been accepted into the preview.

To be eligible for the preview you have to be using an Android tablet running Kitkat and your device screen size has to be within 7"-10.1". Please note that, for the preview, we are not seeking Android tablets running Lollipop. You will need to avoid any system updates to the OS on your device to continue to participate.

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