Microsoft has moved ahead with availability of Office for Android – at least on Tablets, announcing their Beta program which began in November is now over, with their Word, Excel and Powerpoint apps now available to all on Google Play.
Office for Android offers free core editing functions for personal use, with premium features requiring a matching Office 365 subscription. Commercial users will need a matching Office 365 account to access any of the editing or premium features.
The preview program run by Microsoft, saw over 30,000 active users across their various communities, who tested it out on over 3,000 Android devices, with more than 500 models involved. The feedback has been impressive with an average 4.2 stars awarded across the Google Play store.
To use Office for Android, you’ll need a tablet with a screen between 7″ and 10.1″ (larger screens require an Office 365 account) and an ARM based processor (Intel support is coming within a quarter), you’ll also need 1GB of RAM or more. Software wise the apps run on Android 4.4 as well as Lollipop, but Lollipop support isn’t actually official yet – but will be soon.
You can head on over to Google Play and download Word, Excel and Powerpoint right now.
I have an Office 365 Home Premium subscription. Does anyone know how this integrates with O365HP?
Not compatible with any of my devices. I have about six or seven, mostlky Samsung.
This is definitely Microsoft software. On launch I get a warning saying that it may not be compatible with my Nexus 9. Then I get the all too familiar “Setting up for first time use”, “Almost ready”.
That’s ok to make it free on Android I guess because I just heard that they bought share in Cyanogen which does Android ROM, I guess this shows the direction in which Microsoft are going to take over Google