Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

The latest version of Microsoft Office which is expected to launch in 2013, was unveiled at an event in San Francisco.

Microsoft Word, for instance, can now edit PDFs as well as save in the Adobe format, and has added the ability to embed YouTube clips more easily. Users are encouraged to log on so that all devices, from tablets to phones or PCs, return directly to exactly the same point when a document is reopened. A reading mode has also been added to encourage tablet users to read more on their devices. All programmes will now integrate with Microsoft’s cloud storage system, SkyDrive, to offer permanently up-to-date and easily accessible documents, The Telegraph reported.

The range of applications, including Word, Outlook, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint have all been updated to improve how they use the touch interfaces increasingly required by users who have phones and tablets. More than half of all users now have three devices or more, and 60 per cent say they use the same devices in their work and personal lives, Microsoft claims.

Microsoft has also added more social networking elements aimed at businesses, allowing users to ‘follow’ colleagues and documents and tasks as they might follow friends or brands on Facebook. The company recently purchased business social network Yammer for $1.2billion, and will also integrate its other purchase, Skype, allowing calls and instant messaging to be built directly into Office software. Collaboration has been augmented with new video conferencing and live collaborative document editing tools.

IT analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said that the new software would sell well and offered excellent new functions. But she added that even “products at the peak of their success can still be vulnerable to disruption, and Office 2013 certainly is, especially to competitors who put mobile first, and who deliver less-good experiences for cheap or free”.

Office, used by more than a billion people and running on around 90 per cent of business PCs, is the single largest component of Microsoft’s revenue, bringing in more than $15billion per year for the company.

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