Microsoft makes Office free for all devices 10.1 inches and under

Shawn Knight

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Clearly defining the business and consumer markets has been a key strategy of Microsoft’s freemium approach to Office. The company is taking it a step further now as any device with a screen size of 10.1 inches or less is considered a mobile device which means Office’s core editing and viewing features will come free of charge.

Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president for the Office 365 Client Apps and Services team, said in a blog post that since the Office for iPad announcement last March, they have spent a lot of time considering the use cases and business implications involved in bringing Office to different platforms.

Devices with screen sizes of 10.1 inches or less are probably used on the go where it’s not practical to use a larger computer, he said. Such a device likely also lacks a mouse and keyboard and thus, isn’t categorized as a “pro” tablet used for design or presentations.

Offering a free core experience exposes more people to Microsoft’s productivity suite and thus far, the strategy has been paying off. Koenigsbauer said Office for iOS has been downloaded more than 80 million times in less than a year, a statistic that has also led to a 30 percent uptick in subscriptions to Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal. Another impressive statistic – one in seven people use Office every day.

It's worth pointing out that the classification also all but eliminates the possibility of a small-screen Surface Pro mini (although Microsoft seems to have made that decision long ago).

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A few years back I would've thought this was great because I used Office a lot back then, these days I don't have much use for it.
 
So... whats the difference between "core" and "pro"? if none, then its time to buy tablet with mini hdmi
 
Might be wrong but I'm guessing the catch is you have to use one drive to save anything!!? In my opinion, they are desperate to get everyone on to using it so they can start to charge for it!

I've lost count of calls I've had from clients who have unwittingly saved their documents to one drive.When they look in their documents folder, lo and behold they've gone missing! The way MS have constructed this is very underhanded practice in my book.
 
Might be wrong but I'm guessing the catch is you have to use one drive to save anything!!? In my opinion, they are desperate to get everyone on to using it so they can start to charge for it!

I've lost count of calls I've had from clients who have unwittingly saved their documents to one drive.When they look in their documents folder, lo and behold they've gone missing! The way MS have constructed this is very underhanded practice in my book.
Funny, it has and still does work for me, quite well in fact? Must be a P.E.B.K.A.C. error! Besides, don't ALL online storage companies try to leverage their own services, Google (a far more guilty party I might add) to mention just one?
 
This is only true for iOS 7, older versions are not compatible with this version of Office :(
 
Sooooooo typical. They suck you in, then strip you bare. How long before they drop the bombshell that "opps, now we have to charge you $150 a year" or something like that? I really like the WPS stuff, I just wish they would come out with a good database then I would can Microsoft entirely!
 
I clicked on this link under the assumption the author would've research how we go about getting it. No such luck!
 
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