Microsoft Office coming to Nokia smartphones

Posted on 13 Aug 2009 at 16:52

Microsoft and Nokia are working together to bring a version of Office, the ubiquitous productivity suite, to Nokia's Symbian smartphones.

The first application due for release is Office Communicator Mobile, a voice over IP and instant messaging program, sometime in 2010 which will then be followed by the rest of the Office suite at an unspecified date in the future. The two companies plan to bring the mobile Office programs to the business-oriented, QWERTY keyboard-equipped E series smartphones first.

There was no mention of pricing from either Microsoft or Nokia at their joint press conference in New York yesterday. Both companies still plan on developing and promoting their own rival smartphone operating systems, Windows Mobile and Symbian respectively.

We're not convinced this announcement will entice more people to buy Symbian phones instead of an alternative such as the iPhone. Third party Office-compatible productivity programs, such as Quickoffice, are already available for almost all the major smartphone operating systems, while official Microsoft apps are preinstalled on Windows Mobile phones. The iPhone did not have any Office editing apps until very recently but this did little to hinder its popularity.

We suspect most people, even business users, rarely use these existing Office apps and even then only for making very minor alterations to existing documents. The low-resolution screens and keyboards on smartphones aren't ideal for creating and editing complex documents. The ability to view Office documents, which almost all smartphones already have, is probably enough for most people.

Author: Alan Lu

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