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Office for iPad - rumor and denial

Office for iPad rumors with less than convincing denials from Microsoft.

The Daily has images that purport to be for a ‘Microsoft Office for iPad’.

The images tell us nothing except that Office for iPad is near with icons for an iPad version of Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

It’s hardly a secret that Microsoft is working on a version of their Office suite to work on iPad’s. Such a ‘secret’ that Microsoft denials look silly. “The Daily story is based on inaccurate rumors and speculation.” was the best Redmond could say.

At this point Microsoft’s denials about Office for iPad are as credible as your angry girlfriend saying she’s “washing her hair” on Saturday night.

And Microsoft wonders why people treat their public statements with suspicion.

Office for iPad will be a tricky balancing act for Microsoft. On the one hand they need to provide enough features in an iPad version to keep Office users generally content and not moving to rival software.

On the other hand they don’t what to have too good an iPad offering because they have their own tablet device, running Windows 8, coming out later in the year.

It will be like the Office Web Apps (OWA), made by Microsoft as a reaction to growing use of Google Apps. There’s enough in OWA to keep customers happy but not enough to make them stop buying Office software.

Don’t expect too much from Office for iPad.

If The Daily images are in the final iPad product, then Microsoft is being a little cheeky. Microsoft is showing off their new interface on the screens of their main tablet rival. The look of Office for iPad is the ‘Metro’ tiles interface we’ll see in Windows 8.

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