Users of Office applications to create and edit documents for free on iPad: Microsoft

Microsoft Corp says that users of its Office suite of applications on Apple Inc's iPad would be able to create and edit documents for free rather than paying for a subscription and Microsoft would also give prorated refunds to all those who purchased the Office 365 subscription earlier, Telecom Tiger reported.

However, a subscription would still be required for premium features, which include full Office applications - Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, and OneNote on PCs and Macs, unlimited OneDrive storage, and Skype calls. F

Further, commercial use would also require an Office 365 subscription.

People who had earlier paid for the subscription would need to contact iTunes Store Support for a refund.

This was confirmed by John Case, corporate vice president, Microsoft Office in an official Microsoft Blog titled, More Office. Everywhere you need it.

The free Microsoft app was introduced on Android and iOS app stores, after the appointment of Satya Nadella as the CEO of Microsoft. The step was intended to get Office to as many devices as possible with Microsoft's Windows Phone Operating System capturing only a small percentage of the mobile phone market.

To use the app, users had to earlier buy the Office 365 subscription, while those who did not have a subscription could simply view files, although the Office app was available for free download, Delhi Daily News reported.

The free word app had now been upgraded to allow users to perform tasks such as viewing, editing as also creating word documents.

PowerPoint and Excel can also be downloaded free with Microsoft Word. The company's association with Dropbox would allow users to work on those documents which were saved on Dropbox by deploying the Word app.

Microsoft Word app stood at number 2, ahead of the Facebook app, among the free applications.

Users also need to note that the free functionality would not be extended to business houses, as they were the main source of revenue for the firm.

It would generate revenue from business houses relying on its cloud services as also its productivity apps.