If you can’t beat them, join them.
That was the sentiment behind Microsoft’s announcement on Thursday that it was releasing a version of its Office productivity suite for the iPad.
“We’re bringing Office, the gold standard in getting things done, to the iPad,” said Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella at a San Francisco press conference.
In his biggest move since taking the reins of the software behemoth in February, Nadella stressed Microsoft’s commitment to cloud services and acknowledged that in today’s connected world Microsoft and its customers needed to be able to work on every device on the market.
“Just as the best camera is the one you have with you, sometimes the right device is the one closest at hand. Simply put, our vision is to deliver the best cloud-connected experience on every device,” he said.
“A billion people rely on Office every day, and we’ve worked diligently to create a version of Word, Excel and PowerPoint that delivers the best productivity experience available on the iPad.” Office software allows users to create and edit documents, spreadsheets and graphic presentations, but is facing an increasing challenge from cheaper alternatives, designed to work on mobile devices while saving data in the cloud.
Thursday’s move was seen as a belated acknowledgement that Microsoft’s dominance of PCs can no longer guarantee the future of the company, since the rise of tablets and smartphones now means that only 15 per cent of connected devices now run on a Microsoft operating system.
Microsoft’s shares started rising last week amid rumours of Thursday’s announcement and hit their highest point since 2000. The move is seen as a boon to Apple, which has struggled to integrate the iPad into businesses.