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Microsoft Could Earn Billions From Office For iOS

Posted by Soulskill on from the only-if-they-knew-how-to-play-nice-with-others dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Microsoft is leaving billions of dollars on the table by not porting Office to the iPad, according to a new analyst report. That analyst, Morgan Stanley's Adam Holt, believes that Office for iOS would sell to approximately 30 percent of all iPad users; priced at $60 per copy, that comes to a grand total of $2.5 billion per year — minus Apple's cut of the revenues, of course. But does Microsoft actually want Office for iOS out there? It's not necessarily in the company's best interest to rush such a platform to market, even if billions of dollars potentially hang in the balance — it's too busy pushing Office as a cloud-based, OS-agnostic platform. And Microsoft has another reason, aside from pushing the cloud version of Office, to de-emphasize the prospect of its productivity software on iOS: In a bid to draw more customers to its new hardware, Microsoft preloaded its Surface RT tablets with Office; offering the software on a rival touch-screen would take a major selling point off the table."

5 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Again with this shit by war4peace · · Score: 5, Insightful

    TFA is riddled with retarded assumptions. Too many times have I seen things like "I think 30% of all people would buy it", based on muddy facts or even no facts at all. GAAAH!

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    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    1. Re:Again with this shit by Sockatume · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sixty dollars per copy. By Deus! It's full of nonsense.

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      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    2. Re:Again with this shit by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Then let's consider Microsoft could actually produce office tools which make the best use of a Tablet or Smart Phone. I find their tools to be a challenge even with a keyboard and mouse - too much feature bloat.

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      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  2. Proactive respose by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 5, Funny

    Surely the proactive response is to market the current generation product, while synergising a coordinated strategy towards pushing market share towards the new market paradigm?

    I just gagged a little writing that.

  3. I applaud Microsoft for this. by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I applaud Microsoft for this. Using Office as a stick to try to force people into buying a tablet they don't want is a much better strategy than selling Office to people who actually want to buy it.

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    No sig today...