Google acquires QuickOffice to bring native editing apps to Android

Google announced today that it has purchased mobile document editing company QuickOffice, which makes productivity apps for iOS and Android.

Quickoffice Pro and Pro HD currently sell for around $15 and $21 on Google Play respectively (and are still available to purchase), while Pro sells for $14.99 on the iTunes App Store and is a universal app. The suite allows users to create and edit Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and Powerpoint presentations with full Office licenses from Microsoft. It also plugs into cloud sharing services such as Box and Sugarsync, features that were very recently added.

Google’s Alan Warren, Engineering Director said in a press release:

We’re happy to announce that we have acquired Quickoffice, a leader in office productivity solutions.

Today, consumers, businesses and schools use Google Apps to get stuff done from anywhere, with anyone and on any device. Quickoffice has an established track record of enabling seamless interoperability with popular file formats, and we’ll be working on bringing their powerful technology to our Apps product suite.

Quickoffice has a strong base of users, and we look forward to supporting them while we work on an even more seamless, intuitive and integrated experience.

We’re excited to welcome the Quickoffice team and their users to Google.

It’s not known whether the apps will go free, or be removed from the market, as Google integrates them into their mobile-based Google Docs suite. While Docs has been improved on Ice Cream Sandwich, it is still tethered to the internet and is not a full-featured suite the way QuickOffice is.

Source: Google