A report from TheVerge yesterday emerged with a target date of March 2013 for a release of Microsoft Office for iOS and Android products. That was based on a press release from Microsoft’s Czech Republic team and stated “In addition to Windows, Office will be also available on other operating systems, Windows Phone, Windows RT, Mac OS, Android, iOS and Symbian,”.  The whole thing was quickly dismissed as incorrect by Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of Corporate Communications in the following tweet:

“The information shared by our Czech Republic subsidiary is not accurate. We have nothing further to share.”

https://twitter.com/fxshaw/status/256089501049450496#

Microsoft has been on a tear of updates across their product lines, while this report is officially dismissed, it is Microsoft’s official intent that Office will be available on iOS and Android platforms. It’s just a question of when. What’s in question here is when this will all be happening. Without a doubt, Microsoft will probably want to have the product available for its own Windows 8 products first, including its tablets. While it may seem strategically that giving people the ability to have an Office product on a competing platform would not necessarily be wise, the fact of the matter is that the iPad and Android base are huge in numbers and neglecting this market would be neglecting profits altogether. It only makes sense that Microsoft will deliver Office to these platforms at some point, after maintaining the premiere on its own product in tablet format.

As stated before, there has for some time on Microsoft’s part been an expansion of support. Where at one time, Microsoft products were only supported on certain terms and using other supported Microsoft products to connect, a certain truth has emerged in expanding support across a number of access methods in official documentation as well as in practices executing technology initiatives. I can personally think back a few years ago when I proposed virtualizing an entire Exchange organization on VMware. Heresy! – Sheesh the looks I got back then. But now you have support for Android devices, VMware, iPads, iPhones, and on and on. Anyway, the strategy makes sense and is completely in line with what Microsoft has been doing all along.  It will happen.