Office Will Have an Important Role in the Future of iOS, Android
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There is one gigantic
advantage for running Office on iOS or Android: When you unplug the tablet from
the docking station, you are left with a traditional, sleek iPad or Android
tablet. While you might not have as much control managing and editing
documents, the Office applications would still be there to assist with updating
a basic document.
Running Outlook on an iOS or
Android tablet would provide another major change from the way email is managed
on these devices. Currently, built-in default mail applications on iOS and
Android cannot sync files easily with the Sent folder. However, with Outlook
and Exchange, all files and folders would be kept in sync.
If you send an email from
the iOS Mail, it will stay in the iOS Mail Sent folder. The next time you go to
Outlook on your laptop, those Sent messages would not be present. Under
Microsoft Office running on an ARM tablet, all your Sent items would be
available across all the devices that use Outlook as the email client. In turn,
your emails would be available for you to access and review.
Within the next few years,
more tablets are going to be sold than laptops. And, when that happens,
Microsoft will be in a good position to offer Office for iOS and Android
devices. Besides, most people under the age of 40 are spending more time using
either Android or Apple iOS. This means that a whole generation of workers is
getting accustomed to that type of user interface, while using Microsoft
Windows less and less.
If the current state of
development at Microsoft holds up, the company could begin demonstrating Office
on ARM by the middle or end of 2012, with the product reaching the market by
2013. While Windows Phone has only generated small market share numbers in
North America for Microsoft, Office on ARM would surely generate large market
share and may prove to generate more revenue for Microsoft than Windows in this
new market.
Naturally, this begs the
question: If Microsoft ports Windows and then Office to ARM, and users migrate
to using an ARM-based portable, it may-over many years-result in the death of
the traditional x86-based laptops. This strategy may result in Intel, which
makes the lion's share of the world's x86 chips, creating its own line of ARM
architecture or acquiring a company that already does.
No matter how you look at
it, Office is going to play a very important role in the future of iOS and Android.
