Google Quickoffice is now free, Excel fans weep tears of joy
If only having a smartphone or tablet to hand is your current excuse for shying away from Office software duties while away from your desk, you better start getting your skiving thinking cap on – Google have announced that their nifty Quickoffice application suite for editing and creating Microsoft Office documents is now available absolutely free.
Now costing nothing to download from both Google’s own Play Store and Apple’s App Store, it had previously been available for free only to subscribers to Google’s Apps service, a subscription which started at £33 a year, per user.
Sweetening the deal further, Google will be throwing in an extra 10GB of storage on their cloud-based Google Drive for all those that download and sign in to the app with their Google accounts by September 26.
Fully compatible with all Microsoft Office files, Quickoffice also integrates with Google’s own Google Docs, Sheets and Slides services, giving you cloud-based access to all your files, wherever you may be. The download now also comes with a raft of new features, including the ability to create .zip folders and viewable charts in Powerpoint and excel files.
The move seems to see Google attempting to retain users who may be tempted away by Windows Phone 8’s built-in Office editing functionality, and Apple’s recent announcement that the iWork app suite would be offered up for free with all new iOS devices.
