It looks like lots of companies are now trying to topple Microsoft's leadership in productivity software, especially for mobile platforms. Today, Google revealed that it has made its Quickoffice apps, which can read and edit Microsoft Office documents, free for iOS and Android device owners.
The reveal on the Google Drive blog adds that users who sign onto their Google Account from the new Quickoffice apps by September 26th will also get an extra 10GB of Google Drive storage for two years. Google first acquired the Quickoffice software in June 2012.
Microsoft launched Office Mobile apps for both iOS and Android earlier this year but both require a paid subscription to Office 365. The fact that Google has now made its own Quickoffice apps completely free has to be considered a huge challenge to Microsoft on the mobile platform front.
Earlier this week, Box announced plans to launch Box Notes as a cloud-based collaboration software service. Last week, Apple announced that its iWork suite of software programs (Keynote, Pages and Numbers) will now be free on all new iOS devices. Microsoft made its case earlier this week that, in its opinion, the best free alternative to Office was its own Office Web Apps.
Source: Google | Image via Google
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