Last month, we covered the March 27 announcement from Microsoft and launch of the Office suite for the iPad. Individual applications for Word, Excel and PowerPoint were released and the business landscape rejoiced.
Users showed their excitement by sending all three applications to the top of Apple's "Free App" download list. The programs also made an appearance in the top 10 of the "Top Grossing" lists because users signed up for a subscription to Office 365 in order to use the write and edit functions.
Now, according to an article from CIO, after one week, the Office suite for iPad had been downloaded more than twelve million times.
The article goes on to make the case that this kind of fast adoption shows that while there are productivity applications already on the iOS platform like Apple's own iWork suite and Google Drive, Microsoft Office is still the powerhouse. Using mobile devices as a business tool has become more popular with the help of specific applications, but the lack of Office has always been a glaring hole.
With the ability to now easily transfer documents, spreadsheets and presentations between Office on a computer and a tablet, the iPad is now more dominantly placed as a tool for businesses.
For companies using this launch as the reason to start an iPad deployment for employees, it is smart to partner with an IT consulting firm that offers Apple support. This way organizations can enter this realm with a friend in tow.
