Microsoft Expands Cloud for Mobiles; Office for iPad
Microsoft Corp. on Thursday announced several new and updated applications and services including Microsoft Office for iPad and free Office Mobile apps for iPhone and Android phones.
Microsoft also announced the Enterprise Mobility Suite, a set of cloud services to help businesses manage corporate data and services on the devices people use at work and at home.
In addition, the company announced the upcoming availability of Microsoft Azure Active Directory Premium and enhancements to Windows Intune.
“Microsoft is focused on delivering the cloud for everyone, on every device. It’s a unique approach that centers on people — enabling the devices you love, work with the services you love, and in a way that works for IT and developers,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer for Microsoft.
Starting Thursday, Office 365 subscribers can simply add an iPad as one of their chosen devices included in their subscription benefits, and can create and edit documents with Word for iPad, PowerPoint for iPad and Excel for iPad.
These apps are available as free downloads from the App Store, enabling people to read and present documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
Office for iPad brings full file fidelity across Office on PC, Mac, tablet and phone, and along with cloud storage from OneDrive or OneDrive for Business your files are up to date, wherever you need them on whatever device you want to use.
Microsoft also offers other iPad-optimized productivity applications, including OneNote, Dynamics CRM, Dynamics AX, Bing, Lync, Outlook Web Access, OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, Yammer and Skype.
The new Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) provides comprehensive device, identity and access management with data protection from the cloud.
EMS includes Windows Intune, Azure Active Directory Premium and Azure Rights Management Services, to give IT users the tools they need to help protect corporate assets and enable people to work on the devices they love.
Microsoft also announced additional enhancements to Windows Intune, including support for the Samsung KNOX platform, Remote to My PC capability for Android and iOS devices, and support for the next update to Windows Phone, continuing Microsoft’s commitment to cloud-first mobile device management across all devices.
Microsoft Office for iPad is now available in 29 languages. The apps require an iPad running iOS 7.0 or later.
The new Windows Intune features and Azure Active Directory Premium will be available in April, and the Enterprise Mobility Suite will be available via Microsoft Volume Licensing channels on May 1.
Photo courtesy: Microsoft
