It has come to pass. Though it was always coming, the unveiling of Microsoft’s Office suite to the Apple iPad represents a significant shift in the company’s general thinking and approach towards the changing times and its changing face. At an event that also served to introduce him to the world as the head of one of the largest technology companies on the planet, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella not only honoured a long time wish by most of the iPad’s 200 million+ users but also ushered a new era in the way we use software. Mobile is everything going forward.
It does not come as a surprise that Microsoft is actually sticking with its tie-in of Office 365 subscriptions to those that want to do real work on their tablets. That has been the case on Office for iPhone and Office Mobile on Android devices. Office is coming to the iPad as three separate applications that tie-in to each other. Word, Excel and PowerPoint will be able to create, edit and view your documents, spreadsheets and presentations. For those with an Office 365 subscription, you’ll be able to take full advantage of Office for iPad and do a lot more productive stuff other than being able to just “view”.
There’s word that Microsoft is also working on a touch-friendly version of Office for its Windows tablets and we could be seeing that one drop by pretty soon.
