Earlier today Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, announced the availability of Office for iPad out in San Francisco.

Of course, the tech news outlets have this covered with many having their hands on impressions of the productivity suite for the iPad. See the list of links below for some of the postings/reviews.

A couple of surprises in the news about the announcement:

  • Office 365 subscriptions, which are required to edit and create documents in the new apps, are available through the app. That means Apple is getting their 30% cut of those subscription fees. Consider me knocked over with a feather on that one.
  • The response is heavily positive to the apps being made available as well as their look, feel, etc.
  • Negative aspects of the various reactions are related to the need of a subscription to do more than just look at the documents and on Twitter many who have a non-Office 365 version of Office want their paid license to allow them the same access to create and edit documents.
  • It seems most were impressed with how Satya Nadella handled the announcement as well as the location and environment it was held in.  Many noted significant differences in how he did compared to the last CEO.

According to a tweet I saw from a follower, @eferron, as I was putting this post together the three new Office for iPad Apps are already in the top three spots in the App Store.

officeforipadinappstore

With OneNote at number 7 and Skype at 15 that makes for five Microsoft apps in the top 15 free iPad apps in less than 12 hours. 33% – that is pretty impressive.

Here are some of the more notable posts about the new suite of software:

So what do you think – did Microsoft do the right thing here in releasing these apps on the Apple platform?