Microsoft is working on Office for iPad

It seems, Microsoft is already feeling confidence in its mobile future. According to The Daily report, in the 1st half of 2012 Microsoft will release Mobile Office for the competing platform - iPad. Of course, iPad is very popular among business users and Microsoft can easily dramatically increase its incomes by selling mobile Word and Excel for the iPad at $10 (the planned price). But from the political point of view, Microsoft is not interested in making iPad even more attractive product, because it competes with the upcoming Windows 8 tablets. However, after the intention of HP and several other manufacturers to support Windows 8, Microsoft is not afraid of iPad any more. As expected, the MS Office for iPad will be significantly stripped-down compared to the desktop version and will be integrated with the online service Office 365.

For now iPad users already have several options for working with office documents: native iWork (which, however, can't edit MS Office documents), QuickOffice, Documents to Go and Office2. They all cost about $10-15 per app. And you can also use the free web services Google Docs and Zoho Docs in iPad's browser.

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