tech2 News Staff

A day after Microsoft surprised everyone by making Microsoft Office apps free for iOS and Android users, the app has climbed to the tops of the Apple App store, CNET has reported. Among free apps, Microsoft Word now ranks No. 2 - leaving behind the Facebook app.

The app was launched last year on the iOS and Android app stores, after CEO Satya Nadella took the helm of Microsoft. The move was taken in order to get Office to as many devices as it could, given the fact that Microsoft's Windows Phone OS occupied only a small portion of the mobile market. But in order to use the app, users would previously have to purchase the Office 365 subscription. Though the Office app was free to download, users without a subscription were only allowed to view files.

While the subscription still has its advantages, the free app has now been updated to let users carry out basic tasks such as viewing, creating and editing word documents.

As with Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint are also available for free. Thanks to the company's partnership with Dropbox, users can now work on documents saved on Dropbox using the Microsoft Word app. This means you can open, edit and save Word files saved on Dropbox.

Note that the company won’t be extending the free functionality to businesses, which is the key revenue driver for the company.

This means that consumers with documents on OneDrive for Business or Dropbox for business, will have to still pay for the Office subscription to be able to use the apps. So, it will continue to generate revenue from businesses that rely on its productivity apps and cloud services.

Microsoft Office apps can be downloaded from the Google Play store and Apple app store