The productivity suite will be free on small devices

Mar 26, 2015 09:31 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft announced in January that Windows 10 would be completely free for computers running Windows 7 or 8.1, but the company is now looking to bring more people on board with similar offers.

This time, the company has reiterated one of the announcements that it vaguely released a few weeks ago, saying that Office will become completely free on small devices. That should allow more people to experience the benefits of this powerful productivity suite, no matter the device.

Microsoft says that all devices with a screen below 10.1 inches are considered to be part of the “mobile” category. Thus, they will all get Office at absolutely no cost in order to offer productivity on the go, the company has explained in an announcement today.

“We are classifying anything with a screen size of 10.1 inches or less as a true mobile device: You’re probably using it on the go, when it’s not practical to use a larger computing device such as a PC or a Mac. You probably aren’t using a mouse or a keyboard, instead navigating via touch interface. It’s probably not a ‘pro’ category tablet that is used for design or presentations,” Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president for the Office 365 Client Apps and Services team, reveals.

All-in on freemium

Basically, the company goes on with its freemium approach for small devices as well, planning to offer the essential feature package free of charge but to make enhanced functionality available with a subscription.

“On these devices, the core editing and viewing experience is free, until you get to those premium, subscription features,” Koenigsbauer continues.

All Windows 10 for phones devices would come with Office pre-installed, the company revealed in mid-January, while PCs and tablets powered by the new operating system could also get the productivity suite from the store at no cost.

A desktop version of Office, intuitively called Office 2016, will also be released for Windows desktop later this year, most likely in the second half of 2015, after the introduction of Windows 10.