Microsoft released its famous Office software on iPad last week, and the app has reached 12 million downloads in that time.
The iPad version of Office is free to download and can view documents, but you must subscribe to Office 365 to create or edit documents.
This requirement raises the question of how many of these downloads turned into subscriptions, and how many people checked out from using the app in a significant fashion after seeing they would need to pay to gain full access.
Office 365 includes access on computers though--you're not just paying to use the iPad version. This is especially useful if you already pay for Office 365, which is $99 a year, because you can use the same account to get the full iPad version.
Regardless, 12 million downloads represents a massive amount of interest, which is good news for Microsoft. Though there are many alternatives out there, most of which are free, this demonstrates that Microsoft's product is still the de facto king of office software.
The name, brand and product quality carries a certain amount of weight that people still desire, as shown by the huge amount of interest in the software following its release. In an effort to push the service even more, Microsoft made the Android and iOS versions of Office completely free following the news of the iPad version.
More than 12 million downloads of Word, Excel, PPT & OneNote for #iPad from the @AppStore <3 #OfficeforiPad pic.twitter.com/iT2egNPDkj
— Office (@Office) April 3, 2014
Hopefully, we will hear more from Microsoft regarding statistics behind those download numbers. I'm curious how many of them went on to become subscriptions, especially ones that were new accounts, and not just linking up with an existing PC Office 365 subscription.
