Microsoft will ask Apple to approve a version of Office for
the iPad, according to a Feb. 21 report in The
Daily.
The online publication claimed a “brief hands-on” with a
working prototype of the software. “The app’s user interface is similar to the
current OneNote app,” it suggested, “but it has hints of Metro, the new design
language that can be seen in Windows Phone and in the as-yet-released Windows 8
desktop operating system.” An exact release date is “unknown,” although
Microsoft has apparently finished the actual work.
The app enables the creation and editing of Word, Excel and
PowerPoint documents. According to unnamed sources speaking to The Daily, a
version of Office for Android “is not in the works.”
A Microsoft spokesperson later told The New York Times that The Daily's report was "inaccurate" and that it had no further comment.
Office on tablets is clearly Microsoft’s next big area of
focus. Earlier in February, the company revealed that a new version of Office
software will run on Windows on ARM (WOA), the architecture that powers many of
today’s tablets. “Within the Windows desktop, WOA includes desktop versions of
the new Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, code-named ‘Office 15,’”
Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft’s Windows and Windows Live division,
wrote in a Feb. 9 posting on the corporate Building
Windows 8 blog. “WOA will be a no-compromise product for people who want
to have the full benefits of familiar Office productivity software and
compatibility.”
WOA will debut with the upcoming Windows 8, expected
sometime in the latter half of 2012. If Microsoft had chosen to restrict a
tablet-friendly version of Office to Windows 8, that might have created an
additional selling point for the platform, especially for business users. On
the other hand, if The Daily’s report proves accurate, and a full-fledged
version of Office for the iPad is indeed heading for release, then Microsoft
will open up a potentially massive revenue stream. (These sorts of decisions
are why they pay CEOs immense amounts of money.)
Office or not, Windows 8 and Apple’s iPad are set to battle
one another for tablet market share. The question is whether Windows, having
been the dominant operating system on traditional PCs for so long, can make a
name for itself in a segment dominated for years by iOS.
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