UPDATED 14:06 EDT / FEBRUARY 19 2020

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Microsoft brings Word, Excel and PowerPoint together in new unified Office app

Microsoft Corp. today launched a new mobile version of its Office 365 productivity suite that brings Word, Excel and PowerPoint together in a unified interface with several handset-specific features.

The unified Office app first made its debut at the company’s Ignite conference back in November. After spending the last three months in beta, it’s now generally available on Android and iOS smartphones with limited support for Android tablets.

The new app gives users the ability to access their Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides in one place while at the same time freeing up hardware resources. Microsoft said that the unified client “requires far less phone storage than installing individual apps.” It also introduces performance optimizations the company’s engineers made while the app was in beta, plus several capabilities created specifically for mobile users.

One of the banner features Microsoft unveiled today is Word Dictation. It’s essentially a dictation tool and a voice control system rolled into one, allowing users to convert their speech into text and then format that text using spoken commands.

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A separate time-saving feature rolling out for PowerPoint, dubbed Outline to PowerPoint, will automatically format bullet points that a worker jots down in the mobile interface into presentation slides. Microsoft is making Excel more mobile-friendly as well. The new Office app will enable workers to open spreadsheet tables in a “card view” that makes it easier to navigate to rows and columns on a small mobile display. 

Microsoft plans to roll these mobile-specific features in the coming months alongside improved support for Android tablets and the iPad. The unified interface on mobile devices could help give Office 365 a usability edge over Google LLC’s rival G Suite, which is provided as a collection of separate apps. But any advantage may only be temporary. 

A report last month claimed that Google is looking at unifying some of its productivity apps as well. Sourced told The Information that the company is working on a new mobile messaging service for businesses that will provide access to Gmail, file storage through Google Drive, Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet video-calling features all in one interface.

At the competitive level, the new Office app also advances Microsoft’s goal of better supporting frontline workers who spend most of their day away from a desktop. The Microsoft Teams communications service included in Office 365 has recently emerged at the center of this effort. The company released a major update to the mobile version of Teams last month that added a virtual walkie-talkie, new security options and integrations with external business applications all specifically geared toward frontline professionals. 

Images: Microsoft

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