That's part of Microsoft's plan to drive users toward the software rent-not-own concept, which provides Microsoft with annuity-like revenue and customers with more frequent updates as well as free upgrades.
Whenever a touch-first Office for Windows does ship, it will likely use the same business model as does Office for iPad: reduced functionality - viewing documents only - for free, with full functionality available only to customers who subscribe to Office 365. The implied lag between the two makes Microsoft's move of last week to ship Office on the iPad first even more radical. The unveiling order of a touch-enabled Office - first for iPad, Microsoft's tablet rival - was a major departure from previous company strategy, which has almost universally been "Windows-first" for the company's software. Microsoft may simply be playing its cards close, but the short demonstration, and then only of PowerPoint, and Koenigsbauer's reference to "our work in progress" hinted at a longer timespan before Microsoft ships the "Modern," formerly known as "Metro," apps for Windows 8.1 and presumably also Windows RT, the tablet-specific OS that powers only the Surface 2 and Nokia's Lumia 2520. "You'll see us talk even more about next week, in terms of what innovation we are doing on that platform," Nadella told reporters last week, as reported by Geekwire.Īnalysts interpreted Nadella's comments to mean that Microsoft would describe an all-touch Office for Windows 8.1 in significant detail, certainly in more detail than the few minutes that Koenigsbauer spent at Build.
They based their beliefs on comments made by CEO Satya Nadella after the cameras went dark last week at a press event where Microsoft unveiled Office for iPad, an all-touch trio of apps - again, Word, Excel and PowerPoint - written specifically for Apple's tablet.
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