Microsoft unveils Office for iPad as Nadella outlines vision for cloud and mobile

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced that its Office suite will finally come to Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad. Further, Microsoft's Office Mobile apps for Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG)  Android phones and the iPhone are now free, as The Verge notes, since Microsoft has done away with the need for an Office 365 subscription. However, the all-new iPad version still requires an annual $99 Office 365 subscription if users want to edit anything in their documents. Apple confirmed to Re/code that is it is receiving a 30 percent cut on those subscriptions. It's a mark of how Microsoft is breaking away from having its strategy largely be driven by what will benefit users of its Windows operating system.

More broadly, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella used his first large public address as CEO to talk about his vision for a "mobile first cloud first" world. In a follow-up blog post, Nadella said cloud and mobile need to go hand in hand. "They are two facets of one thing," he wrote. "The cloud was created to enable mobility. And mobile devices are really uninteresting without the cloud." Practically though, he wrote that means that "a great idea shouldn't have to wait for you to get back to a particular device. An impromptu call with a customer shouldn't be delayed because you don't have the right data on hand. Life moves too fast to put limits on where and how you work. Just as the best camera is the one you have with you, sometimes the right device is the one closest at hand. Simply put, our vision is to deliver the best cloud-connected experience on every device."

That's a big reason why Microsoft is finally bringing Office to iPad. Nadella said it was a long time coming and not an easy process. "We've been obviously working on this for a while," he told reporters, according to Re/code. "The thing we wanted to get most right was the combination of what I would call the combination of the app, the enterprise architecture, the developer APIs, and then marry it with the device and what you expect from the device. … It's not just a trivial thing, let's port Word for Windows to a particular device." Article