Office for iPad: Office 365′s Killer App?

It’s been one of the biggest questions since the original iPad launched back in 2010: “When can we run Word on this thing?” Microsoft answered that question last week, announcing Office for iPad, available now. The new apps offer iPad users full-featured versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel. While the apps are available for free, Microsoft’s pricing strategy sheds more light on their plans for the future.

Any user can download the Office for iPad apps to read, view and present files. But unlocking the full, “It’s just like using Office on my PC!” experience requires a subscription to Office 365. It’s a smart way to introduce a new group of potential customers to Microsoft’s subscription service, but it’s also a fantastic way to work around the problem of pricing in the App Store.

The Current Market

It’s always been hard to price apps that are designed to be real pieces of productivity software in an App Store, which is usually dominated by free-to-play Candy Crushes and 99-cent Angry Birds. Apple’s own version of the Office suite (Pages, Numbers and Keynote) initially sold for $9.99 each. Other productivity apps, like The Omni Group’s OmniGraffle, sell for prices as high as $49.99.

Finding the sweet spot for pricing a new form of a piece of software most people already have some version of gets even trickier. By offering the Office for iPad apps for free with an Office 365 subscription, Microsoft is drawing a pretty clear line in the sand between Office 365 and any previous versions of the software. “If you’re a subscriber, you get this for free. If you aren’t… you should really think about becoming one.”

Microsoft’s Push to the Cloud

It’ll be interesting to see how this plan pays off for Microsoft. So far, the reviews of the apps themselves have been mostly positive. The customer reviews on Apple’s App Store are more divided. The Word App currently sits at three stars after just under 2,000 ratings. The biggest reason for one star reviews? Customers don’t feel like the Office 365 subscription should be required.

Office for iPad is a turning point, both for the Office suite and for Microsoft’s push to the cloud. Is this the next step in an effort to kindly force people away from Office 2003? If so, what’s the next step? We’re interested in your take. Let us know what you think about Office for iPad in the comments.

via Business 2 Community http://ift.tt/ObDGkW