Surprise: Microsoft has a “first-and-best on Windows” strategy

Perusing Microsoft’s Windows Phone job board today it appears Microsoft is hard at work at expanding Office on Windows Phone, with a job posting for a program manager to help “define and build the new feel and functionality of the next Office on Windows Phone.”

That by itself is of course not news, and Office is by far not the most exciting part of Windows Phone.

What is interesting is the statement below:

Having already shipped Office on Windows Phone 8 – a key milestone that highlights the importance of our “first-and-best on Windows” strategy. As MOD moves to focusing on the next Office, Office applications will need to preserve consistency in functionality as they ride across a continuum of form factors, while still differentiating themselves enough to embrace the target platform they run on.

Windows Phone users will be somewhat surprised to hear of this strategy, as numerous Microsoft apps show up first and appear to be best on iOS and Android, with recent examples including Skype.

Of course it may be a new strategy as part of the “One Microsoft” initiative.  Hopefully we will see this strategy in actual practice in 2014.

See the posting at Microsoft here.