Microsoft Office comes to iOS and Android in 2013

The arrival of the Microsoft Suite devices by March of 2013 has been confirmed. The important thing about this announcement lies in the fact that smart phones and tablets are designed basically for consuming content—watching movies, playing videogames, etc. But they lack good tools for productivity. So, something as simple as editing text quickly and efficiently can be a hard thing to do with a mobile device, and that is what the arrival of the Office pack would solve.

The announcement was made at a Microsoft event in the Czech Republic by Peter Bobek, an executive at the company, who has confirmed that the famous Office Suite tools (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) will be available for an array of mobile operating systems by March of 2013.

The policy at Redmond seems to be to favor products and users faithful to Windows. On the following 25th of  October the long-awaited Windows 8 will be launched, and along with Surface tablet, as part of the strategy that Microsoft is deploying to try to unify all its services, products, desktops, tablets, and smart phones into only one operating system.

It is more than likely than the Surface will come with pre-installed apps like Word, Excel, Power Point, Access, and the rest of the Office pack, which would put those who use this device in a more privileged situation. In addition, it’s an opportunity to stand up to those who rule the field: iPad, Android tablets, and Kindle Fire.

High-end smart phones and tablets have lots of features, but when it comes to text editing—even though you don’t a powerful processor or amazing RAM memory—Android users don’t have many options. They can either pay for apps like DocumentsToGo on GooglePlay, or try their luck with a free but hardly versatile app like Kingsoft Office, as well as what is more effective for most—text editing with Google Drive, even though it may require an Internet connection. On the other hand, Apple device users have to opt for using apps like Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, which cost $8 each. The Microsoft movement, although late, could end up being of its most important hat tricks to bring it into the competition.