Microsoft has finally brought its Office software titles Word, Excel and PowerPoint to the iPhone by launching a Mobile Office app. The good news: the price tag to download it is free. The catch: it’s only truly free for current Office 365 subscribers on Mac or PC. Everyone else gets to pay $99 per year for the privilege, making it orders of magnitude more expensive than Apple’s own iWork mobile apps over the long term. Now Microsoft gets to find out whether its belated arrival on the iPhone after a six year absence will be greeted with open arms or if it’s too late to matter.
iPhone users have generally either adopted Apple’s own productivity apps or decided they don’t need a word processor and spreadsheet on their smartphone. But some consumers, particularly some employees of corporations whose IT departments are married to Microsoft, may find the iPhone more practical now that Office 365 apps allow documents to be more compatibly created and edited on Apple’s mobile phones.
Still, Microsoft is actively advertising the fact that Office runs on its own Surface tablet and not the iPad. That explains why Office is still a no-show on the iPad. But after looking at the confusing pricing scheme for Office on the iPhone, it may not matter.
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