Tim Cook talked about Microsoft’s new product during the second quarter earnings call

Apr 24, 2014 07:17 GMT  ·  By
Tim Cook says there are plenty of Office productivity suites in the App Store
   Tim Cook says there are plenty of Office productivity suites in the App Store

Microsoft launched Office for iPad last month, quickly taking over the leading spots in the top free apps charts and receiving thousands of downloads for the built-in productivity tools, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook said during the company’s fiscal second quarter earnings call Wednesday that Office for iPad is indeed a helpful addition to the store, but explained that Microsoft should have actually launched the productivity suite on Apple’s tablets earlier because many other companies already released similar products. Apple is also offering its very own iWork productivity suite to iPad users.

“Office is a key franchise for enterprise customers and having it on iPad is good. We wholeheartedly welcome Microsoft to the App Store, and customers are responding very positively,” Tim Cook said.

“If it had been done earlier, it would've been better for Microsoft.”

Microsoft, on the other hand, believes that it’s not necessarily late to the party, pointing out that Office for iPad is actually part of a much boarder expansion that includes some other versions of the productivity suite as well.

Microsoft is also working to launch a touch-based version of Office aimed at Windows 8 devices, which according to people familiar with the development plans, is very likely to debut sometime this year. At the same time, an Android version of Office is also in the works, but no specifics have been provided on launch date and features.

Office for iPad is offered free of charge to those who have purchased an Apple tablet running iOS 7.0 or later, but an Office 365 subscription is needed if you want to edit and create documents.

The cheapest subscription plan is called Office 365 Personal and is available for $6.99 (€5.05) per month or $69.99 (€50.5) per year and provides support for one PC or Mac and one tablet to be connected at the same time. Buying any subscription also brings you 60 minutes of Skype calls for a month and 20 GB of additional OneDrive storage that allows you to save more files in the cloud and access them from any other device.

“You can download the Office apps for free and read, view and present documents, spreadsheets and presentations. To get the full editing and creation experience, you need an Office 365 subscription. Office 365 gives you always-up-to-date versions of Office across your PC, Mac and iPad, and much more,” Microsoft explained in the original description of Office for iPad.