Microsoft Office Begins Plan For Mobile Domination

For the last two decade Microsoft Office has been the dominate desktop productivity suite. Argue about "cool alternatives" all you want, but who doesn't come across Word, Excel or PowerPoint at some point in their day?

As web-based applications began to take hold, alternatives to Office became quite viable, most notably Google Apps. The rise of web apps also brought into question the need for word-processors, spreadsheets and presentation software. Alternatives like wiki pages, blogs, collaborative documents, presentation tools like Prezi and others enabled us to rethink what type of tools we even need. Microsoft was slow to bring their Office suite to the web, but has now done so with Office365 and is even introducing new apps to the suite like Sway.

But a 3rd battle ground may be even more important than the web, and that's mobile. For years Microsoft's direction was clear, they would not bring office to non-Windows mobile devices, but thankfully under their new leadership that silly notion changed.  In March 2014 they released Office for iPad which has been installed more than 40M times. Today Microsoft announced they are bring the Office apps to Android and iPhones, updating the iPad apps, updating the Mac apps, and planning for touch versions for Windows 10.  They refer to this as "Office Everwhere for Everyone."

Office has always been a "cash cow" for Microsoft. Making Office available on almost any device, and even opening Office up to partners like DropBox show Microsoft does not plan on letting that go any time soon.