Windows productivity and collaboration apps, like its Skype messaging service, will now be found on the home screen when people buy some devices running Google's Android mobile operating system starting later this year, Microsoft announced Monday. Those apps include Skype and others like its OneDrive Internet-storage service and OneNote writing program, alongside mainstays like Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Microsoft also said it brokered a new set of partnerships with smaller, regional device makers spanning multiple continents and large markets like Russia, Germany and Pakistan. All eleven of the deals will extend to business and consumer versions of the apps, giving companies the option of purchasing bundles that allow the software to be used across various platforms.
Microsoft executives ultimately hope that getting more people using its apps will pull consumers away from other free alternatives, like Google's suite of Web apps preloaded on almost every Android device in the world, which totaled more than 1 billion shipments last year alone.
Meanwhile, sales of Microsoft's cash cow, its Windows and Office software for PCs, are slowing as free alternatives and cloud services become more popular. Microsoft in January said in response that its next operating system, Windows 10, will be free, much like it has been treating its Windows apps for the better part of the last year. Eventually, Microsoft hopes, consumers will move onward to the products Microsoft can charge money for like its Office 365 subscription service, which charges for access to its productivity apps across devices.
