Slipped into the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c keynote earlier this week, was the announcement that the iWork suite of apps for iOS would be going free with new iOS device purchases . This includes mobile productivity apps Pages, Numbers and Keynote, Apple's answer to Microsoft Office. There's been much said about how this might affect Microsoft's product, and Paul Thurrott of the Supersite for Windows [1] has weighed in:
I'm not 100 percent convinced that iWork is an Office killer. But as with my note about Chrome OS yesterdayâ€"see In New Attack on Windows, Chromebook Heads to Intel "Haswell" for the detailsâ€"this is something Microsoft needs to take seriously. I will be keeping an eye on this as well.
That's actually the final paragraph of a pretty in depth piece that considers the argument from both sides. One point in Apple's favor on mobile is that access to mobile Office on iOS costs $99.99 a year, and due to the platforms prevalence there's a whole lot less people that will consider Office in the face of a free alternative. After all, for many iWork does just as good a job as Office. Desktop or mobile.
It's almost certainly not an Office killer, at least, not yet. But mobile is fast becoming a focus for productivity, and on iOS at least Microsoft does stand to lose out if they do nothing. I implore you to head on over and read Thurrott's full piece, as it offers an extremely well rounded point of view. When you come back, let me know; do you think iWork going free on iOS will impact on Microsoft Office at all?
Source: Supersite for Windows [2]
Links
- ^ Supersite for Windows (winsupersite.com)
- ^ Supersite for Windows (winsupersite.com)
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