After Microsoft released Office for the iPad many of us assumed that the company would release a version for its Windows 8 tablets next. ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, however, reports that this is not the case and that Microsoft will instead be bringing its touch-centric version of Office to Android before it comes to Windows 8. Foley’s sources also say that the touch-centric version of Office for Windows 8 will now likely release in the spring of 2015 and not the fall of 2014 as she’d previously heard.
While it used to be unthinkable that Microsoft would release its signature productivity software onto a rival platform before releasing it to Windows, times have changed and Microsoft’s share of the tablet market is still stuck in the single digits. So while Windows 8 users may gripe that they have to wait to get the latest Office software, Microsoft knows that there just aren’t as many of them right now as there are Android and iOS users right now.
