Sony, LG, Other OEMs to Get Preinstalled MS Office and Skype

By Dondi Tiples, Christian Post Contributor Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Microsoft has inked deals with Sony, LG, and other electronics manufacturers to preinstall its most used apps on Android tablets.

Sony, LG, and other electronics brands consumers will soon have Microsoft Office, Skype, and cloud services in their Android tablets straight out of the box after Microsoft partnered with the OEMs to offer the preinstalled software and apps.

With a total of 31 partners, including Haier and other smaller manufacturers, Microsoft has adds them to earlier deals closed with with Dell, Pegatron, and Samsung in March to have MS Office and Skype installed on their tablets. A number of these apps have already been preinstalled on Samsung Galaxy S6.

While their business agreement with Microsoft has not been released in detail, Microsoft has revealed a unilateral goal to open up new streams of revenue for each partner.

LG is expected to begin preinstalling Microsoft software and apps in their upcoming tablet, and Sony has already announced they will be incorporating them in their soon to be launched Xperia Z4 tablet in June.

The hardware partners will soon be offering Android tablets with preinstalled Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive, and Skype in the near future, showing Microsoft's commitment to have their software and applications on non-Windows mobile devices.

The partnerships will bring Microsoft's ecosystem to mobile devices to offset the computer giant's slow growth in its own mobile product sales. With the applications preinstalled on Android devices, Microsoft will be able to get the widely-used programs into consumers' hands right out of the box.

The software company's push to bring free MS Office apps to Android devices has even included iPads and iPhones, after it made available subscription-free mobile creation and editing for Office apps, with separate standalone apps launched for iOS and Android in November last year.