Microsoft Office For iPad Launched

Microsoft launched their iPad version of Office / Office 365 today in sunny San Francisco.
http://www.appstore.com/microsoftoffice

More specifically Microsoft’s productivity suite for iPad and iOS 7.0 devices consists of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. So to attract customers into Office, Microsoft is offering a free read-only version, a free 30 day Office 365 trial, and various regular paid models of Office with full editing capabilities.

A new Office 1.1 version for the iPhone was also launched today on iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-office

Office for iPad
Office for iPad

Fortunately Microsoft did put some real efforts into this app, so that it is optimized for iPad screen navigation and input through touch and not mouse and keyboard like in the standard desktop version of Office. It even works together with the iPad’s voice dictation.

But Microsoft promises that the document standards will remain intact so that the look of presentations and documents will appear similarly when viewed and edited on various computer, tablets, and phones.

6 months from now Microsoft will wake up in panic and realize what a mistake it made, since nobody will have bought a Windows computer the last half year now that Microsoft have removed the only reason left to buy a Windows device (that was a joke – I’m just practicing ahead of April 1st).

Office 365 with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on iPad
Office 365 with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on iPad

– Tom Bowen