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Office on iOS and Android: Microsoft returns to its roots

With all the vertical integration and feather-ruffling of the new Microsoft (you know, the one with the sedate logo), it’s important to remember that the company has not abandoned its traditional business models of licensing and supporting multiple computing platforms (especially the one controlled by Apple) any more than it’s ready to dump desktops and notebooks as it embraces the tablet with Windows 8.

That’s why it’s refreshing to see that Microsoft apparently plans to bring Office, and from the looks of it, in optimized form — not only to iOS — but to that target of its legal ire, Android. This should be a win for Microsoft. Office is not the killer app that it once was, but having Office available on other platforms helps expand the power of the franchise as those platforms grow.  The competitive impact to Windows Phone or Windows on tablets should be negligible as Microsoft has long since moved past the corporate synergy argument in promoting those platforms, even as it has boosted it by tying its music and entertainment to the vibrant Xbox brand versus the now buried Zune one.