Microsoft reportedly plans to launch Office for Android ahead of Windows 8 version

As noted by ZDNet, Microsoft seems to be considering putting the release of the Android version of its popular Office productivity suite ahead of the build for the company’s own Windows 8 operating system. Apparently the Windows version has been pushed back to 2015, while the Android variant is internally being planned for release by the end of 2014.

It certainly seems like an odd strategy to put your most popular software product on every competing mobile operating system before your own–image Apple releasing an Android version of its iWork suite before an Android version, or Google pushing out an iPhone app for a new product that has yet to launch on Android–but Microsoft’s “mobile-first” strategy dictates that the company simply push as much software to as many devices as it can without consideration for platform.

It’s a good plan for getting as much revenue as possible from Office, but it could also be seen as putting Microsoft’s own loyal users on the back burner to instead focus on those who use devices from the competition… and that’s probably not a great way to retain Windows users.