At its Windows 10 event today, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 for phones and small tablets (under 8 inches) will include free versions of the core Office apps that were designed for touch: Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
As Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore noted, Microsoft is working on a wide range of universal apps that can run on all Windows-powered devices. “Our Office team has been hard at work creating killer universal apps for Windows,” he said. The mobile apps “will deliver a highly rich and highly complete version of Office on these devices.”
Unsurprisingly, the apps will feature a mobile version of the familiar (and once-controversial) Office Ribbon. “What we’ve done here is nicely format the familiar Ribbon experience right into the app bar experience,” Belfiore said.
To show off how feature-complete the apps are, he demoed some of the standard collaboration features of Word, including the review feature. He also stressed that the list of recent documents you worked on roams between devices.
It’s unlikely that Office support will sell more Windows Phone devices, but it’s a nice feature for those who (still) need to use Office.
