microsoft office for mobile Archives ⋆ Mobile Commerce Press

Tag: microsoft office for mobile

Microsoft is using mobile apps to draw users

Dan Gendro | June 11, 2015

The company is hoping to win over device owners with a spectrum of Android and Apple compatible applications.

Microsoft has been releasing a range of different mobile apps that are compatible with Android and Apple iOS operating systems in order to help to draw the attention and usage of those device users.

The company has been acquiring startups to help to give its own mobile application offerings a boost.

For example, Microsoft recently purchased a tech startup from Germany called 6Wunderlkinder. Now, it is able to offer mobile apps that compete with some of the core applications that had previously been used on other operating systems. For example the Keep app on Android or the Reminders application on Apple now has competition through the Wunderlist that was created by the newly acquired company.

That is only one example of several moves that Microsoft is making in order to draw users for its mobile apps.

Mobile Apps - Microsoft At the same time, the company continues to promote its own Windows operating system for mobile devices. That said, in the grand scheme of things, the number of consumers who are actually purchasing devices based on that OS are quite low compared to the number of people who are using Android and iOS based gadgets. Therefore, the company is ensuring that it will be able to appeal to a larger market by ensuring that its smartphone apps will run on the most popular platforms and not just its own.

The offerings from Microsoft include its Office programs for Android and iOS, which it created itself and released earlier in 2015. That said, it also has a calendar application called Sunrise, which was developed by a company that was purchased by the tech giant back in February. For its email application, it uses Accompli, which was the result of a purchase of another startup.

So far, the mobile apps that Microsoft has been offering – including its own and those developed by startups that it has acquired – have been receiving considerable praise from tech reviewers. It could be that the company may be starting to redefining its niche within the new device marketplace.

Microsoft Office is now available for free on mobile devices

Julie Campbell | November 13, 2014

This is only one of the latest of a tremendous wave of changes being made by the technology giant.

Among the many new pieces of technology news coming from the Redmond, Washington based tech giant has been the release of Microsoft Office for free for users of mobile devices.

This is a move that has taken many by surprise, when taking several of the company’s previous strategies into consideration.

For many years, Microsoft Office had not even been made available in a format that was compatible with mobile devices, regardless of price. Now it is has been announced that it will be a free software suite. Office was released for the iPhone in the summer of 2013, and soon afterward there was a version made for Android smartphones, as well. It wasn’t until March of this year that it was available for the iPad.

Previously, there was a bit of a catch, as Microsoft Office was only be free to those who had a paid subscription.

Microsoft Office on Mobile In order to be able to take advantage of the software suite, users previously needed to have an Office 365 subscription, which comes with a price tag of $99. Now, regardless of whether or not users are subscribers to Office 365, they will now be able to use their iPhones, iPads, and Android devices to create and edit spreadsheets, documents, and presentations through Office.

This decision has been made by Microsoft at a time in which the usage of smartphones has now started to pass the use of laptops and desktops, which has historically been the heart and soul of Office. Moreover, Microsoft was also facing a threat to its massive hold on the document, spreadsheet, and presentation market, as the products of competitors were starting to rapidly improve and were already available to users of mobile devices at better prices.

Competition to the mobile version of Microsoft Office has included products such as Google Drive productivity apps, which have been available for free to users for some time now. Apple has also been offering its iWork suite for free to users of iPhones and iPads, as of last year.