People who rely on Microsoft office for their day to day work and are android phone users have reason to rejoice as the Microsoft apps for android phones will be available free on their smartphones, from this week onwards.

According to a report on CNET, working on a word document, excel sheet or even making presentations is set to become simpler for smartphone users as Microsoft apps will now be available on their devices. These apps can be downloaded and used, free of charge. The update has been introduced this week itself and is an important milestone because it completes the introduction of Microsoft office apps across all major platforms.

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Earlier in February 2015, the Microsoft Office applications were introduced for Android tablets and at that time itself, the makers announced a preview version for android phones to be launched in May, according to Engadget. Meanwhile, Microsoft product manager Ebun Onagoruwa said that the core purpose of introducing these apps across such varied platforms was to ensure that each time people think of work, Office is the first thing to come to their minds.

The launch of an Android version commemorates an 18-month old journey that started with Microsoft first offering the apps for Apple's iPad. This clearly completes the transformation of Office from being an ordinary software suite to evolving into a platform that easily adapts to multiple devices. Another motive behind this popularising is to ensure that people think of Office and Windows software beyond products that can be purchased through one time licenses. Previously other major companies like Adobe, Oracle and Salesforce.com have also resorted to similar methods in order to convince customers to pay for the cloud based applications.

As of now, Microsoft's cloud business is barely able to contribute five percent to the total revenue. With these developments, the management team at Microsoft is confident of registering bigger numbers. Since its launch in June 2013, more than a million users have already downloaded the Microsoft office apps.

The company has also confirmed that it is in talks with all the major device makers to introduce Office as a pre-install version in their smartphones. 

TagsMicrosoft update for Androids, Word on android, android app store.