There’s Still Hope we Will See Office Ported to the iPad
Anybody want to work for Microsoft these days? Was that a pin I just heard drop? Okay, maybe it isn’t quite that bad. My poor attempt at humor aside, a recent job posting from Microsoft seems to hint toward Office for iOS becoming a reality.
We have gone back and forth on whether we expect to see Microsoft Office on the iPad anytime soon, with the latest blow to our hopes for that happening earlier this month when Office 15 was launched without support for the iPad.
The posting indicates that: “You will work very closely with the Development team on the design, implementation, & testing of new feature work to be part of Microsoft’s new move on the Mac and on iOS.”
That last part “and on iOS” leads us to believe that they haven’t written the platform off just yet; though it shouldn’t be discounted that the wording of the job posting could also be related to their other iOS offerings such as SkyDrive or OneNote. It also doesn’t speak to time frame.
We’ve been supposing that Office is headed for the iPad for quite some time, with a number of rumors suggesting we will see it come November of this year. Other reports state that Microsoft is nervous providing their signature suite of software to Apple to be run on their mobile hardware, but that seems ridiculous when you consider that it means increased purchases (and therefore revenue) and a larger user base (or at least maintaining the shockingly loyal community they already have).
The longer Microsoft holds out, the more likely it will be that users will switch away from Microsoft software entirely and adopt programs like Apple’s Pages, Numbers and Keynote which are in direct competition with Word, Excel and PowerPoint (and doing a mighty fine job of it if you ask me).
[via 9to5Mac]
