Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) said it was eliminating the fees attached to some of the mobile apps that function with Office 365. The move is uncharacteristic of Microsoft because the company considers Office as its top revenue earner. However, the elimination of such fees that apply to certain mobile apps for Office will only benefit non-business users.
The move to give away Office 365 for non-business mobile users is expected to help the company maximize its users even though it would forgo some revenue. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is also readying a version of Office for the tablet devices that run on Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s Android OS. Additionally, it plans to update Office 365 for iOS and Android mobile devices. It has been several months since it rolled out the product for the cross-platform use, but there have been no updates to refresh the Office app for iPhone and Android mobile.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) charged $70 a year for use of Office 365 for non-business mobile users. The announced fee waivers now mean that mobile users will access the product free of charge. However, the company will continue to charge business users of the app as well as those using it on laptops and desktop computers. Still, even for the non-business users, company retained fees on Office mobile apps that support such functions as text column formatting in Word and alteration of labels in Excel.
In making the changes, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is not yielding to the competition in the market. Instead, the company wants to make its products more popular, especially the Office apps, according John Chase, its VP of marketing – Office. He said that they had recognized that for the company to remain the best-paid service that it is already, it was also important that they become the best free service.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s CEO, Satya Nadella, appears to focus on adding more users while maintaining the highest numbers of users at the same time. They hope that dropping fees for Office apps on mobile will attract many more users who will later become paid users on PC and Mac. However, one consoling thing would be windows phone was one of most popular cell phones in the World.
At the end of the second quarter of 2014, Jeffrey Ubben‘s ValueAct Capital held over 74 million shares in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).
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