In San Francisco, Steve Ballmer described Office 2013 as the firm's "most ambitious release" to date. The software is primed for mobile devices, cloud computing, and social networking.
Office is the globe's most popular productivity application, with a billion users worldwide. It is also Microsoft's key revenue driver, and keeping it fresh is how the firm intends to maintain its market lead. Throughout his hour-long demonstration on Monday, Mr Ballmer and Kirk Koenigsbauer, vice-president of Microsoft's Office division, highlighted how the software had been adapted to keep pace with technology changes.
Office 2013 is fully touch-ready, as is Windows 8, the company's latest operating system, and its new tablet computer, Surface, which is expected to be available in October. Surface will hit stores some two-and-a-half years after Apple launched its iPad onto the market, and analysts say the power of Office gives Microsoft its best chance at gaining a genuine foothold in the tablet market.
For the first time, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook are all responsive to touch-screen controls - taps, swipes, and pinch-and-zoom can be used within documents, files and presentations.
Source: BBC News
