Rumors (and credible leaks) about Microsoft Office for iPad have been swirling for at least a year, but so far, the best you can do is load up Office 365 in your iPad’s web browser. If you want a tablet that natively runs office, you have to buy a Surface.
There’s a reason for that. Microsoft knows that Office is the biggest reason why someone might buy a Surface over an iPad. But by refusing to release Office for iPad, Microsoft is leaving a lot more money on their table than they are taking from it in Surface orders, at least according to one analyst.
Accoording to a report from Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Holt, if Microsoft priced Office for iOS at $60, they would sell it to 30% of iPad users. That means that by 2014, Microsoft could be generating about $2.5 billion per year on Office for iPad.
That’s a lot of money. Right now, it’s certainly a lot more money than Microsof’s making off the Surface.
The question is, is Adam Holt right? Would you buy Microsoft Office for iPad for $60? Let us know in the comments.
Source: AllThingsD
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
