Microsoft Office is coming to iPad
Remember the Mac guy versus PC guy commercials from a few years back? If their fictional relationship still existed today, instead of trading thinly veiled insults, the two characters would be tentatively shaking hands.聽
Microsoft鈥檚 new CEO, Satya Nadella, will likely announce Microsoft Office for iPad at an event next week, according to rumors confirmed by sources at several major tech websites. This will be the first major move for Mr. Nadella at the helm of the company, and signals a far more conciliatory outlook than leadership in the past. Will it work?
Microsoft reached out to reporters Monday morning announcing there will be an event in San Francisco on March 27 鈥渘ews related to the intersection of cloud and mobile.鈥� Sources confirmed to , , , and others that this event will feature the release of the Office suite for iPad.
Sources say Microsoft will offer a few free options ( Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote) and a premium subscription that includes the entire suite. It is expected to be downloadable from the Apple App Store.
Last June, Microsoft released Office for iPhone. Office for iPad is .
Currently, Microsoft offers an Office suite subscription that can be downloaded on one PC or Mac, with the option of extending to one tablet. Though the only current tablet option is a Windows tablet (such as the Surface 2).
The Surface hasn鈥檛 exactly excelled in the increasingly competitive tablet world, especially when compared to Apple鈥檚 iPad.
However, Microsoft has remained the dominant player in software. Office has remained the gold standard for word processing software. It has retained a tight grip on Office for this reason 鈥� it is the one piece of seemingly indestructible armor in Microsoft鈥檚 defense.
That being said, software without hardware is useless. Nadella seems to understand that. It appears a change of heart is accompanying the Microsoft regime change, especially considering outgoing CEO Steve Balmer once on an iPhone at a Microsoft meeting.
Rumors of Microsoft extending the Office olive branch to Apple have been circulating for the past two years, however many thought it wouldn鈥檛 be released until after Microsoft put out a touch-based version of Office just for Windows tablet users. Sometime in the past year, the project got fast-tracked.
The March 27 event will be webcasted at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern) and comes just days before the Build developer's conference, the annual celebration of Microsoft innovation.
