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Microsoft Office for iPad to Launch on March 27

Monday March 17, 2014 2:42 pm PDT by Jordan Golson
Microsoft will launch its Office suite on the iPad at a media event on March 27 according to a report from The Verge. The suite -- including Word, Excel and PowerPoint -- has been in the works for years, with recent reports saying the lack of Office on the iPad was costing Microsoft as much as $2.5 billion per year.

The company released a version of Office on the iPhone last year, part of its Office 365 subscription service, and The Verge says the iPad version will also require a 365 subscription.

office_logo
Microsoft has been working on the software for a number of months now, having first introduced an iOS version of Office for the iPhone in June last year. We understand the iPad variant of Office will be similar to the iPhone version, and will require an Office 365 subscription for editing. We’re told that document creation and editing is fully supported for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps. Overall, the interface and features are expected to be similar to the existing iPhone version.
The site says new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will expand on his "mobile first, cloud first" strategy, something demonstrated by the free launch of the Mac version of OneNote earlier today.

Microsoft is also said to have an update for Office for Mac coming in the Spring of 2014.

Update 4:44PM PDT: Twitter user @rgonzalezagui posted what he says is a screenshot of Office for iPad leaked by a Microsoft employee:

[ 285 comments ]

Top Rated Comments

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arkmannj
19 weeks ago
Software subscription (Office 365) no thanks... I would rather pay per app.
Rating: 52 Votes
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dumastudetto
19 weeks ago

A little too late? But really, what took so long?


Yep. Nobody wants this now. Apple nailed it with their iWorks strategy.
Rating: 27 Votes
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Ayr
19 weeks ago
A year ago I would have bought it. Now I don't give a toss.
Rating: 25 Votes
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AngerDanger
19 weeks ago
March 27th… 2016. :p
Rating: 21 Votes
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Frizers
19 weeks ago
would happily pay £50 for the suite. But a subscription for a word processor, yeh right.
Rating: 18 Votes
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BornAgainApple
19 weeks ago
Steve would never have allowed this, but which one?
Rating: 15 Votes
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Rafterman
19 weeks ago
A 365 subscription?

So ends that then. Apparently, STILL no (real) Office for iPad.
Rating: 11 Votes
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sflomenb
19 weeks ago
And we care why? Especially when there is iWork for iOS, which is free.
Rating: 9 Votes
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luckydcxx
19 weeks ago
They needed this when the original iPad was introduced, instead they bashed the iPad.
Rating: 9 Votes
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newagemac
19 weeks ago

Yep. Nobody wants this now. Apple nailed it with their iWorks strategy.


Definitely the case with our company. A few years ago, we were basically begging Microsoft to bring Office to the iPad. Now iWork and other solutions are firmly entrenched and at this point it's... meh. iWork is free and cross platform now. And it's much better than Google Docs which Microsoft was originally worried about. Making it free and cross platform pretty much shuts Microsoft's window of opportunity very narrow now. They missed out big time in my opinion.

If only they had realized that sacrificing Office at the alter of Windows meant they would lose both.
Rating: 8 Votes

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