Microsoft puts its mobile Office apps for Windows 10 on hold

Microsoft first started work on its touch-friendly Office apps for Windows 8.1 more than five years ago. Designed for tablets or laptops with touchscreens, the apps are lightweight and speedy versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Microsoft has updated them regularly for Windows 10, but now that the company has halted work on Windows 10 Mobile, it's also halting work on these Office apps.The apps aren't fully dead yet, but Microsoft is no longer developing new features for them. "We are currently prioritizing development for the iOS and Android versions of our apps; and on Windows, we are prioritizing Win32 and web versions of our apps," explains a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge.

Typical Microsoft. They develop this entirely new way of writing and building applications, they want everyone to switch to it, but then fail at the dogfooding stage because the Office team is incapable of moving beyond its slow and bloated existing codebase. They got farther than ever before this time - the UWP Office apps are quite full-featured and much faster and more pleasant to use than their traditional counterparts - but still never even got in sight of the finish line.