SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft Corp’s Office suite of applications, encompassing its popular Word, Excel and PowerPoint programs, became available to iPad users from Apple Inc’s app store from yesterday.
The expected announcement marks a significant break with Microsoft’s longstanding Windows strategy now that new Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella has taken the helm. The software giant has previously been unwilling to compromise its signature PC operating system.
At a news conference yesterday, Microsoft executives demonstrated a new “touch-first” version of Office crafted for the iPad, available for download as a free app, although a subscription is needed to let users create or edit documents. Significantly, executives did not demo any software on Windows machines.
While the technology behind the software is not ground-breaking, the strategy is: It puts Office at the heart of the company’s push to become a leading services company across a variety of platforms — possibly at the expense of Windows and its own
Surface tablet. That perceived willingness to break with the Windows tradition. Reuters
