Microsoft may have recently released an Office Mobile app for Android, which is restricted to Office 365 subscribers, and an OneNote app for iOS, but Microsoft has yet to really roll out the Office productivity suite for these two platforms. During the Financial Analyst meeting last week, Microsoft hinted at the possibility of this happening eventually.
“We are working on touch-first versions for our core apps in the Office suite, Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and we will bring these apps to Windows devices, and also to other devices in ways that meets our customers’ needs, and the customer value of those experiences, and in ways that economically make sense for Microsoft, and at a proper timetable,” Microsoft’s Qi Lu stated during the meeting. He is responsible for Microsoft’s Applications and Services Group, which the Office productivity suite falls under.
One analyst suggested that Microsoft “let your apps free and run cross-platform,” to which Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer replied, “What I’m telling you is we’re going to integrate our services with our devices, [but] we’ll also make our services available on other people’s devices, both to the consumer and to the enterprise.” It appears that Microsoft is indeed looking to bring Office to other platforms.
“Now, how do we get our services to be popular on non-Windows devices? With the enterprise we kind of know how to do that. You walk into the enterprise, you say sign up for Office 365, you say we’re going to embrace your iPads and your iPhones, and blah-de, blah-de, blah. We know how to do that. We know how to get paid. Life feels pretty straightforward,” Ballmer adds.
There was no official confirmation or direct answer as to if or when we will see Office on the iPad or Android tablets. But Microsoft is indeed hinting at the idea!
