Quickoffice, maker of productivity software for mobile devices, has been acquired by Google. The acquisition comes at a time when Google is preparing to transfer all files saved with Google Docs, which has been the company’s cloud-based office software, over to Google Drive. While Google Docs might be disappearing, picking up Quickoffice indicates that Google isn’t letting its efforts to establish itself as a provider of office productivity software go by the wayside and, more, that it looks to capitalize on the growing market of mobile accessibility.
The acquisition will likely affect all businesses, schools, and possibly even governments that currently use Google Apps, but only insofar that these customers will now be using some Quickoffice-style apps. Also don’t be a surprise if Google creates a new service called something like Google Office (because you know how Google likes to take simple nouns and give them a proper case). Then again, Google could simply keep the company’s name in some Google Quickoffice variation, a la Google Picasa.
In a company blog post, Quickoffice co-founder and CEO Alan Masarek said, “By combining the magic of Google’s intuitive solutions with Quickoffice’s powerful products, our shared vision for anytime, anywhere productivity can only grow.”
Quickoffice has been named among the top 50 apps for Android tablets as well as leading the list of top 5 business apps for Android smartphones. Check out the demo video below of Quickoffice at work on Android.
Some of the products available from Quickoffice, such as Quickword, Quicksheet, and Quickpoint, work across Android as well as iOS platforms although you wouldn’t be foolish to expect that the availability to the latter OS might be discontinued in the future.
