Microsoft's Office for iPad suite dominates App Store charts after one day of availability
About 24 hours after debuting on the iOS App Store, Microsoft's Office for iPad productivity suite has taken over the first three Top Free Apps seats, with the fourth going to the redesigned OneNote.
It appears pent-up demand for an iPad version of Microsoft's productivity suite has propelled all three Office for iPad apps -- Microsoft Word for iPad, Microsoft Excel for iPad and Microsoft PowerPoint for iPad -- to the top of Apple's iOS App Store for iPad. Microsoft introduced the apps on Thursday.
As seen in the above image, the three Microsoft apps top the list for free iPad downloads, with Word in first, Excel in second and PowerPoint in third. The redesigned OneNote, released alongside Office for iPad yesterday, takes the fourth place spot.
Microsoft's new iPad apps are of the so-called "freemium" variety, meaning they require in-app purchases to unlock certain features. In the case of Office for iPad, free features include document viewing, but users need to have an Office 365 subscription to make edits. Existing subscription holders can sign in immediately, though Microsoft also built in a subscription purchasing mechanism in each Office app.
As with any other software distributed through the iOS App Store, Microsoft Office is subject to Apple's usual 30 percent cut of any new in-app purchases, in this case subscriptions. Current Office 365 pricing stands at $99 per year or $9.99 per month.
Microsoft's latest iPad apps are also making an appearance on the App Store's Top Grossing apps chart, with the most in-app subscription buys coming from Word, which is currently sitting in the number four spot, while Excel and PowerPoint follow in 11th and 26th, respectively.
It appears pent-up demand for an iPad version of Microsoft's productivity suite has propelled all three Office for iPad apps -- Microsoft Word for iPad, Microsoft Excel for iPad and Microsoft PowerPoint for iPad -- to the top of Apple's iOS App Store for iPad. Microsoft introduced the apps on Thursday.
As seen in the above image, the three Microsoft apps top the list for free iPad downloads, with Word in first, Excel in second and PowerPoint in third. The redesigned OneNote, released alongside Office for iPad yesterday, takes the fourth place spot.
Microsoft's new iPad apps are of the so-called "freemium" variety, meaning they require in-app purchases to unlock certain features. In the case of Office for iPad, free features include document viewing, but users need to have an Office 365 subscription to make edits. Existing subscription holders can sign in immediately, though Microsoft also built in a subscription purchasing mechanism in each Office app.
As with any other software distributed through the iOS App Store, Microsoft Office is subject to Apple's usual 30 percent cut of any new in-app purchases, in this case subscriptions. Current Office 365 pricing stands at $99 per year or $9.99 per month.
Microsoft's latest iPad apps are also making an appearance on the App Store's Top Grossing apps chart, with the most in-app subscription buys coming from Word, which is currently sitting in the number four spot, while Excel and PowerPoint follow in 11th and 26th, respectively.
Comments
But many of them deleted once they found that its not for content creation unless Off.365 sbscription!
Can anyone tell me if Excel for iPad has macros and VBA backend capabilities?
I'd wager you are correct. That said, hopefully lots of enterprise customers will now go for more iPads.
But many of them deleted once they found that its not for content creation unless Off.365 sbscription!
Word is listed as #4 grossing app, though. So IAP subs to 365 are obviously happening / being bought.
But how does this make sense? Microsoft having to buckle under the pressure of losing more share, by making an app for the iPad? Aren't all of the statistics from reputable stat sites saying the ipad sells a small sliver of the tablet market? Why would Microsoft waste their resources on this small segment, when they don't do it for blackberry or even surface yet? And having to give 30% of revenue? Doesn't make any sense from the analytical reports of reputable sites. /s
You are nonsensically mixing stats from various market segments (tablets, office productivity suites, etc.).
Office is a separate business unit of Microsoft, just as Windows is a separate business unit, and hardware (Surface tablets) is a separate business unit.
Let's discuss Windows first. The Windows PC market is contracting; the unit sales of PCs shrinks every quarter. Let's use one analyst's numbers (I don't say they're the best, but at least there should be some consistency in their accuracy or lack thereof). Let's use Gartner's numbers. Worldwide 2013 PC sales were 315 million, down from 2012's 351M, YOY -10%. Mac sales decreased -7% during this time, so the Windows PC sector itself performed worse than -10%.
In the past, Microsoft prioritized Office availability on Windows PCs; that made sense when the Windows PC market was growing. That is no longer the case. Thus, Microsoft has to nurture Office on non-PC platforms.
Now let's look at tablets. The iPad's current marketshare of 2013 worldwide tablet sales is 37%, down from over 50% in 2012. Apple's self-reported iPad unit sales for 2013 was 74 million units, versus 61M units in 2012. The non-iPad tablet market went from 55M units (2012) to 125M units (2013), mostly in the form of Android tablet sales (Windows tablet sales went from 1M to 4M, not worth discussing at the moment).
Thus in 2013, there were 199 million devices sold that couldn't run Microsoft Office.
So looking at these numbers, you'd say, "Well, Microsoft should develop for Android tablets first, since that's where the most non-Office compatibility device sales are." However, the fact of the matter is that most Android tablets are pretty basic devices. Enterprise customers largely ignore Android tablets and buy iPads.
Moreover, just ask app developers about their revenue stream from iOS and Android app stores. For the same app, it is typically >5 times higher in the iOS App Store, even though Android has more unit sales. Greater Android marketshare does not proportionally translate to greater app revenue.
As for Microsoft giving up 30% to Apple for the ability to sell its app in the iOS App Store, that's the cost of doing business in the most successful software store on the planet. Note that Office 365 subscriptions can be found at Amazon.com for about $67, so clearly Microsoft has wholesale pricing elsewhere as well.
Lots of people will grab them as free viewers. If the excel can view pivot tables I may need that one. Excel on Mac cannot.
From what I've read, it doesn't currently support pivot tables.
But how does this make sense? Microsoft having to buckle under the pressure of losing more share, by making an app for the iPad? Aren't all of the statistics from reputable stat sites saying the ipad sells a small sliver of the tablet market? Why would Microsoft waste their resources on this small segment, when they don't do it for blackberry or even surface yet? And having to give 30% of revenue? Doesn't make any sense from the analytical reports of reputable sites. /s
I was going to say that it's sad that you have to add "/s" after that post, but ...
This is seemingly just more happy news for iPad. This further lowers the barrier to entry for iPads into the tightly managed corporate IT world. I'm sure Apple is hoping for the "halo effect" from iPad will pry open up the door a little wider for much wider deployment of Apple products into the corporate world.
On the other hand, I'm sure that neither Apple nor Microsoft is taking any of this at face value. It's a bit of a chess game. If I was on the MS Surface team I'd see this move by Microsoft as making my job a whole lot harder. Heck, that team's been giving away Office on the Surface for a couple of years and now three days after Office is available on iTunes it's topping the charts on the world's leading tablet. That has to have a shriveling effect on the team balloon.
Ah, but on the other side, Microsoft is a lot more business savvy than the likes of Steve Ballmer may have outwardly projected. This could be a trojan play for Microsoft to legitimize post-PC devices in their mainstream market, the corporate world. Once the acceptance of the post-PC platform genre is in place they start telling their customers "oh by the way, that Office360 subscription you've already paid for and is running on your company issued iPad runs just as good on this device that we offer - and we'll bundle up a lot more big money apps with it if you sell yourself to our ecosystem." Maybe hold a yearly dev event and rent out Universal Studios for all the attendees. Free beer and swag. What's not to like about that?
It could just as easily be Microsoft falling back on what has always been their core competency - selling software that runs on just about anything. Maybe they pack up up the whole Surface Experiment and send it off to the Island of Misfit Microsoft Toys where the Zune and Bob are permanently vacationing. Move over Bob, make room for Surface. Selling massive amounts of software that runs on a massive number of devices isn't a half bad idea, especially when it's subscription based and the money fire hose is constantly gushing cash.
Interesting, and if you're a lover of technology and American Ingenuity, fun times ahead.
A very nice suite of software that definitely feels built for the iPad. For those in school or in the workplace, it's harder to find a smoother piece of content creation than Office. It is pricey, and obviously must feel pressure from Apple's iWork software which comes free with Apple hardware. However any time a teacher/professor/manager needed something created, they needed a PPT, DOCX or XLS. It's just far too convenient pay for Office than to fight with alternatives.
Can anyone tell me if Excel for iPad has macros and VBA backend capabilities?
Why don't you simply download and get your answer.
Numbers is simply inferior to Excel- bar none. This is a no-brainer for me.
Why don't you simply download and get your answer.
Numbers is simply inferior to Excel- bar none. This is a no-brainer for me.
Brilliant response. Maybe I was at work all day and didn't have access to my iPad. Those kind of answers you can keep to yourself.