Why Microsoft will regret not doing MS Office for iOS

I was rather intrigued by the comment made by a Microsoft executive after the iPad was announced that basically stated that Apple’s iWork is not for real work or productivity. For that, he says, only Microsoft Office is a true productivity tool. I took personal offense to this remark since I use many of the iWork tools for productivity and it meets the majority of my needs. In fact Keynote is actually a better presentation tool for us at Creative Strategies then Powerpoint. Pages has become a very robust word processor allowing us to do all of our newsletters and client Perspectives documents in this rich and graphically oriented word processor. We also do almost all of our charts in Numbers, the third product in Apple’s iWork tool kit. So if I read Microsoft’s executive’s comments correctly, I do not do real work–I apparently only do pseudo work or productivity since I use iWork.

Of course, his comment was just silly posturing and made him and Microsoft just look clueless. I continue to be amazed that Microsoft still does not give Apple the respect it deserves and from this comment it suggests that they still don’t take Apple seriously even if the iPad has taken close to 100 million PCs out of the annual PC buying cycles. Three years ago we sold close to 400 million PCs a year. In 2013 we will be lucky if we sell 300 million. That means 100 million less PCs are sold each year that could use MS Office than in the past. Yet, Microsoft has still not created a version of MS Office for iOS!

I believe that it is actually too late for them to do MS Office for iOS for three major reasons-

1-Apple’s new iWork suite of tools is now free. Knowing Microsoft, if they did do a version of MS Office for iOS I highly doubt it will be free. In fact it would probably be at least $60.00 to match the yearly fee of MS Office online. Perhaps 5-7% of iOS iPad users might be tempted but given the quality of iWork tools today, free always beats paid for software and if productivity on iOS 7 is needed, the majority will opt for iWork.

2-iWork will only get better. Apple never stands still when it comes to improving their software. You can expect that Pages, Numbers and Keynote will gain even more features and give users even greater controls over the next 18 months, trumping anything that Microsoft might deliver in an iOS version of MS Office. Also iWork in the cloud is so much better than Office in the Cloud already and it too will only get richer given Apple’s laser focus on apps and services.

3- I believe Apple has a killer productivity device in the works that could be even more disruptive to the PC market than the original iPad. If you think the iPad has had a detrimental impact on the PC market to date, just wait. Although Apple has not done any serious push for the iPad for use in business and the enterprise, the iPad has emerged as a very rich productivity tool in its own right. Add a Bluetooth keyboard to the iPad and in many ways it replicates the laptop experience in a much smaller, thinner and lighter physical platform. The iPad Air makes the iPad even thinner and lighter and is already in high demand in many IT accounts I have talked with recently.

There is a reason Apple named the new iPad the iPad Air. Some think Apple will do an iPad Air Pro and others think they will do some type of hybrid. They may be right but I suspect Apple has something else in mind that may have elements of these two ideas but in a different package. Of course I am just speculating here but I sense something big is up and if they do create an iPad that is optimized especially for productivity, I predict it could take at least another 30-50 million PCs and laptops out of the yearly PC pipeline by the end of 2015.

Had Microsoft brought out a version of MS Office for iOS 7 within a year of the iPad being on the market, it would have been a big success and serious money maker for them. Now it is too late. You also can’t count out more and more people moving to Google’s productivity tools. I recently found out that a major national newspaper just moved everyone over to Google Docs and away from Office. I have heard that same thing happening at other big firms and big government accounts too.

With a shrinking PC market and a looming larger iPad/iOS market continually growing along with new productivity tools from Google and others, MS Office will have a hard time attracting new buyers and I am afraid that this franchise will only recede instead of grow in the future.

Published by

Tim Bajarin

Tim Bajarin is the President of Creative Strategies, Inc. He is recognized as one of the leading industry consultants, analysts and futurists covering the field of personal computers and consumer technology. Mr. Bajarin has been with Creative Strategies since 1981 and has served as a consultant to most of the leading hardware and software vendors in the industry including IBM, Apple, Xerox, Compaq, Dell, AT&T, Microsoft, Polaroid, Lotus, Epson, Toshiba and numerous others.

452 thoughts on “Why Microsoft will regret not doing MS Office for iOS”

  1. If you attended WWDC 2013 or watched the videos from those sessions, you should already have a good idea of what’s coming.

    Don’t presume “enterprise” is unimportant to Apple, or that 64-bit was “the only thing they could think of.” Apple plays chess while most companies are playing checkers…no, tic-tac-toe…no, rock-scissors-paper. They’re getting all of the pieces in place, setting the trap, and waiting for the most opportune moment.

    It’s gonna be a slaughterhouse…

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