It was announced last week that Microsoft will be offering the mobile Office app for free. This was a surprising decision by Microsoft and the company even went as far as offering refunds for iPad users that have subscribed to Office 365. One might wonder, what’s the catch?
To learn on what the catch is, consumers have to understand Microsoft’s decision. They simply made turned the Office into a free application due to the sky high demand for the service. In addition to that, Microsoft is anticipating the major change from desktop to mobile. The next major question, how is Microsoft going to earn?
The answer is simple. With the Office app becoming a normal feature of a smartphone from now onwards, more and more consumers will start to rely on the app. In a matter of time, users will get to depending on the Office app and realized that they need more functions. Obviously, users will think about subscribing to Office 365 then.
It is not a simple task for Microsoft. The company will have to compete with the likes of Google Docs and Apple iWork. It doesn’t help when Microsoft learns that they are at the bottom end of the market right in productivity.
