Metro Weekly

Microsoft to unveil updates to its Office Suite on Monday

Microsoft Office Logo

According to a report in USA Today, Microsoft will unveil the latest version of its popular Office suite on Monday, July 16. It’s just in the nick of time, as Microsoft’s $22 billion clerical-tool cash cow has seen market erosion to Google’s online Google Docs platform and Apple’s iWork suite, in particular the highly-functional, low-cost iPad versions. According to the paper’s sources:

Office 15 is scheduled to be available early next year, bristling with hooks into Windows 8, the latest upgrade of Microsoft’s operating system software, which will be generally available in October.

Microsoft has kept tight wraps on Office 15, fueling talk it might enable editing of Adobe PDF documents and even run on iPad. “The more devices Office 15 is available on, the better it is for Microsoft,” says Trip Chowdhry, managing director of Global Equities Research.

[It’s] likely that Office 15 will run exclusively on Windows 8,…a touch-friendly operating system. Scheduled for general release this fall, it will come in a version for PCs and another to power Microsoft’s new Surface tablets.

Key advances are likely to come in Office 15’s capacity to mesh with the Surface tablets, Microsoft’s challenger to the dominant Apple iPad.

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