A mobile version of Microsoft’s Office productivity suite will reportedly be officially unveiled in early 2013, running across Windows Phone, Android and iOS.
Microsoft’s plans to launch a version of its flagship software for mobile devices have long been rumoured but the company has so far declined to provide details on the launch.
Office Mobile will run as a free app and will launch on Apple’s iOS first, reported The Verge.
Office for iOS is expected to launch in March, with an Android version to follow in May. It will require a Microsoft account and will let users view basic versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel, while an Office 365 subscription will allow document editing.
Businesses can offer codes to workers to enable editing, and iOS users will be able to buy an Office 365 subscription within the application, the report states.
The new application will compete with a joint initiative by Apple and VMware, who have teamed to build an iPad cloud-hosted office suite which will let users ditch Office entirely.
CRN last month reported the iPad app combines VMware View virtual-desktop software with cloud-hosted versions of Pages, Keynote and Numbers -- known as the iWork suite -- running on Apple infrastructure.
VMware's Horizon Application Manager, a management tool that has been likened to an enterprise app store, is also included.
The pair are also working together on Horizon Mobile for iOS, part of the Horizon Suite VMware showed off at VMworld, which is slated for beta release by the end of the year, sources told CRN.
Horizon Mobile creates a partition between personal and business applications and data on a device.
It is unknown when the suite will be released or how much it will cost.
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