As Amazon continues to blaze its own trail in Android devices, Microsoft’s services are moving right along with it.
On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that its OneDrive cloud-storage app is now available in the Amazon Appstore, for both the Kindle Fire line of tablets as well as the new Kindle Fire phone.
In July, Microsoft announced it had ported its OneNote note-taking app to the Amazon Appstore as well. In our productivity-oriented review of the Kindle Fire HDX, we found a couple of note-taking apps that did the job—but without the integration elements that the combination of OneNote and OneDrive offer.
At Microsoft’s recent partner conference, Microsoft executives reiterated that users should expect a continued migration of Microsoft apps and services onto non-Windows platforms. “On every home screen out there our aspiration is to have one or many Microsoft icons representing Microsoft digital experiences,” Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said. “They’re all entry points for us as an ecosystem.”
And Microsoft’s Jason Moore said as much in announcing the OneDrive integration. “OneDrive is now everywhere that matters to you – from PCs to Macs, Android, iOS and Windows phones and tablets, and now on your Kindle Fire and Fire phone,” Microsoft’s Jason Moore announced.
ABI Research said this week that as many as 20 percent of all Android tablets run what’s known as AOSP, or the Android Open Source Project. Many of those tablets are confined to China, where low-priced, bare-bones offerings from numerous manufacturers never make it to the media markets of the United States. But that figure still includes Amazon’s tablets and phones. Porting Microsoft’s services to Amazon bites off a big chunk.
It’s not too hard to believe that Microsoft’s other services will eventually arrive on the Kindle platform as well, including services such as the Outlook Web App. Microsoft’s Office Mobile apps for Android are another candidate—but since they still don’t support Android tablets, it’s unlikely Microsoft will make the effort until a native version of Office for Android is released.