News

Sony Joins Virtual Reality Race with New Headset for PlayStation

Posted on March 21, 2014 by admin

Inspired by Oculus Rift, Sony is adding virtual reality to the PlayStation 4.

By Simon Parkin on March 19, 2014

Sony unveiled its long-rumored virtual reality headset on Tuesday at the 2014 Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco. Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony’s Worldwide Studios, stood in front of a packed auditorium of game developers and said: “Virtual reality is the next innovation from PlayStation that could shape the future of video games.”

Code-named Project Morpheus (a name Yoshida admitted the company only settled on within the past few weeks), the headset will work with Sony’s PlayStation 4 video game console (see “Xbox vs. PlayStation: Beginning of the End for Consoles?”). The headset, which Sony said has been in development for three years, will use inertial sensors built into the head-mounted unit and the PlayStation camera to track a user’s orientation and movement. As the player’s head rotates, the image of the virtual world rotates in real-time.

The headset includes a five-inch LCD panel and 90-degree field of vision. It contains a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and 3-D audio. Morpheus has a light, slick design: a black, rounded visor that hangs solidly from a white curved headband. However, Sony has been quick to point out that neither the specifications nor design are fixed as yet.

“Morpheus enables developers to create experiences that deliver a sense of presence—where players feel as though they are physically inside the virtual world of a game,” said a Sony spokesperson. “Presence is like a window into another world that heightens the emotions gamers experience as they play.”

Richard Marks, one of Project Morpheus’s creators, described his experience with the technology: “When I first experienced presence it shifted my skepticism into complete belief.”

The decision to unveil the technology at an event for game developers rather than to the general public was a tactical one. Sony no doubt hopes to replicate the groundswell of independent developer support that created such a buzz around Oculus Rift. This rival headset, first announced in 2012 and slated for release later this year, is a PC-compatible device that has dominated the conversation around virtual reality (see “Virtual Reality Startups Look Back to the Future”). Sony’s Yoshida paid tribute to Oculus Rift in his presentation. “I have an enormous amount of respect for them,” he said. “We were inspired in our work by the enthusiastic reactions of developers and journalists who tried their prototypes.”

Enthusiasm for Oculus Rift has been tempered by some skepticism. Some observers argue that VR is a gimmick that soon wears thin—as evidenced by the technology’s disappearance in the 1990s. Others complain that such headsets often make players nauseated.

Even so, Sony’s announcement adds to the sense that VR’s time has come. While Oculus Rift has the sizeable benefit of being first, Project Morpheus will benefit from Sony’s marketing clout and the installed base of six million PlayStation 4 owners. And unlike Oculus Rift, Sony’s device will benefit from running on hardware with fixed specifications.

Endocyte Doubles After Drug Shown to Slow Lung Cancer

Posted on March 21, 2014 by admin

By Anna Edney Mar 21, 2014 8:11 AM PT

Endocyte Inc., a biotechnology company with no marketed products, more than doubled in value after its experimental medicine slowed the progression of lung cancer in a study.

The drug, vintafolide, also won the backing of a European Union panel to treat ovarian cancer along with an imaging agent that will help the therapy target the patients who will respond best, the West Lafayette, Indiana-based company said today in a statement. Endocyte surged 89 percent to $27.60 at 10:52 a.m. New York, after rising to as high as $33.70 in the largest intraday increase since the shares began trading in 2011.

The trial results in non-small cell lung cancer are key because that study involves a larger patient population,Adnan Butt, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in San Francisco, said in an e-mail. The mid-stage study showed vintafolide combined with chemotherapy reduced the risk of patients’ lung cancer worsening or of death by 25 percent compared with chemotherapy alone.

“We’ve studied vintafolide in two of the toughest-to-treat cancers and seen positive results and we view this as a continuing validation of the drug and the platform,” Chief Executive Officer Ron Ellis said on a conference call today.

Attractive Candidate

The company could be a candidate for a merger or acquisition “with an attractive product, pipeline and technology,” said Butt, the analyst, who didn’t mention any potential suitors by name. The study confirms that Endocyte is “a platform technology company, along the same lines as” ImmunoGen Inc. and Seattle Genetics Inc. he said.

The start of a final-phase trial required for approval to sell the drug will depend on data still being gathered on how long vintafolide extends patients’ lives, Ellis said. That data may be available later this year, he said.

The timing will be up to partner Merck & Co., Endocyte said. Whitehouse Station, New Jersey-based Merck, which joined Endocyte in the development of vintafolide in 2012, fell less than 1 percent to $55.36.

To contact the reporter on this story: Anna Edney in Washington at aedney@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net Bruce Rule, Robert Valpuesta

Vermillion launches metals fund as Carlyle rebuilds commodities

Posted on March 20, 2014 by admin

Vermillion, the commodity arm of U.S. private equity group Carlyle Group LP (CG.O), has started trading a new gold and base metals fund this month as it seeks to rebuild market presence after losing more than half of its capital, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

In a regulatory filing dated February 14, Vermillion’s Chief Operating Officer Christopher Zuech said the Aeris Metals Fund had raised $122.5 million from 23 investors in total. The filing did not state the launch date.

Carlyle spokesman Randy Whitestone declined comment.

Aeris, focused on both physical and derivatives trading, is one of the first commodity fund launches of the year, after a tumultuous 2013 when institutional cash left the space to chase a rally in equities. Commodity-focused hedge funds were also roiled by lower volatility last year.

Trading at Aeris will be overseen by Greg Buechele, the portfolio manager for precious and base metals at New York-based Vermillion Asset Management, sources said.

Buechele was a commodity index products manager and timber trader at Goldman Sachs (GS.N) before he joined Vermillion in 2007 to assist in trading base and precious metals and develop livestock market strategies, the Carlyle Group said on its website. Carlyle bought Vermillion in 2012.

“Vermillion has had its ups and downs in commodities, but it’s won a liking for its physical premium play in metals combined with options trading done by Buechele,” said the manager of a rival metals hedge fund in New York.

“That’s one reason they’ve been able to get good support from outside investors for this new venture.”

Separately, Carlyle, with prominent hedge fund manager Louis Bacon and other investors, is acquiring a majority stake in metals trader Traxys Group. The investment comes as big banks scale back on commodities.

Aeris is the sixth fund within Vermillion, which lost more than a $1 billion in assets under management last year.

Vermillion’s assets fell from above $2 billion in March 2013 to around $900 million by December.

In January, Carlyle said Vermillion will also be responsible for one of its upcoming commodity mutual funds, called the Carlyle Enhanced Commodity Real Return.

Founded by Drew Gilbert and Chris Nygaard in 2005, Vermillion trades agricultural products, metals, energy and staples such as coffee, sugar and cocoa beans. Gilbert and Nygaard remain co-chief investment officers at the firm.

(Corrects Christopher Zuech’s title to Chief Operating Officer, not Chief Investment Officer)

(Reporting by Barani Krishnan; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Airbnb in funding talks valuing it at about $10 billion: source

Posted on March 20, 2014 by admin

Online home-rental marketplace Airbnb Inc is in advanced talks with private equity firms including TPG Capital Management LP TPG.UL to raise funds that would value the company at about $10 billion, a person briefed on the matter said Thursday.

TPG is likely to lead the funding round, which could exceed $400 million. Texas-based TPG recently made a large investment in ride-sharing company Uber, another major player in the burgeoning sector known as the sharing economy.

The Airbnb talks were first reported Thursday by The Wall Street Journal. (r.reuters.com/fup77v)

Airbnb, whose website rental listings range from private rooms to manors and islands, has become one of Silicon Valley’s most successful start-ups in the five years since it was founded by a trio of graduates from the Rhode Island School of Design and Harvard.

But its foray into the hospitality business has been met with controversy in critical marketslike New York state, which prohibits renters from subletting their homes for less than 30 days if they are not present. The company remains locked in a legal battle with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who subpoenaed Airbnb for information about its hosts in the state last year to determine which were in violation of state law.

The San Francisco city attorney’s office has also looked into the legality of such short-term rentals after coming under pressure from tenant advocates, who say the proliferation of Airbnb rentals has sapped the rental housing market of supply and driven up rent prices.

A valuation of $10 billion would make Airbnb worth more than Hyatt Hotels Corp (H.N), which has a market value of $8.43 billion, and Wyndham Worldwide Corp (WYN.N), valued at $9.39 billion.

(Reporting by Gerry Shih in San Francisco and Sweta Singh in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Leslie Adler)

Alibaba invests $280 million in messaging app Tango

Posted on March 20, 2014 by admin

Tango, the mobile messaging app-maker, announced Wednesday it has raised $280 million in a new funding round led by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

By almost any measure, the investment amounted to a staggering sum for a mobile app developer. The deal, which came one month after Facebook Inc’s stunning $19 billion acquisition of Whatsapp, underscored the lengths that Internet companies are willing to go to gain a foothold in mobile communications.

Alibaba invested $215 million while the remainder of the funding came from Tango’s prior investors, which include Access Industries, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Jerry Yang, a co-founder of Yahoo Inc, Tango said.

The investment gives Alibaba a minority stake in a messaging service with 200 million registered users and 70 million active users. Tango claims significant traction in North America, the Middle East, Taiwan and Singapore.

Alibaba, which views Chinese rival Tencent as its most serious competitor, has long recognized the threat posed by Tencent Holding’s WeChat, a massively popular messaging app that has slowly morphed into an e-commerce platform. Alibaba recently introduced a WeChat competitor called Laiwang, but the service has so far struggled to the extent that Alibaba founder Jack Ma, according to various media reports, urged Alibaba’s entire workforce last year to recruit new users.

Tango, the mobile messaging app-maker, announced Wednesday it has raised $280 million in a new funding round led by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Tango is the latest in a string of investments for Alibaba, which is preparing for an highly anticipated initial public offering in New York that could value the company at $200 billion.

MESSAGING WARS

In an interview, Tango co-founder Eric Setton told Reuters that he believed his company, which offers games, multimedia sharing and other content, would eventually beat Whatsapp, which offers purely text and voice communications.

“The platform approach I believe is the winning strategy,” Setton said. “We’ve now seen it in a number of key markets, with Kakao in Korea or Line in Japan.”

Tango, which has offices in Mountain View, California, Beijing and Austin, Texas, was introduced to Alibaba through Yang, who in 2005 led Yahoo’s investment in the Chinese company.

Artificial Organs May Finally Get a Blood Supply Artificial tissue has always lacked a key ingredient: blood vessels. A new 3-D printing technique seems poised to change that.

Posted on March 19, 2014 by admin

In what may be a critical breakthrough for creating artificial organs, Harvard researchers say they have created tissue interlaced with blood vessels.

Using a custom-built four-head 3-D printer and a “disappearing” ink, materials scientist Jennifer Lewisand her team created a patch of tissue containing skin cells and biological structural material interwoven with blood-vessel-like structures.Reported by the team in Advanced Materials, the tissue is the first made through 3-D printing to include potentially functional blood vessels embedded among multiple, patterned cell types.

In recent years, researchers have made impressive progress in building tissues and organ-like structures in the lab. Thin artificial tissues, such as a trachea grown from a patient’s own cells, are already being used to treat patients (see “Manufacturing Organs”). In other more preliminary examples, scientists have shown that specific culture conditions can push stem cells to grow into self-organized structures resembling a developing brain, a bit of a liver, or part of an eye (see “Researchers Grow 3-D Human Brain Tissues,” “A Rudimentary Liver Is Grown from Stem Cells,” and “Growing Eyeballs”). But no matter the method of construction, all regenerative projects have run up against the same wall when trying to build thicker and more complex tissues: a lack of blood vessels.

Lewis’s group solved the problem by creating hollow, tube-like structures within a mesh of printed cells using an “ink” that liquefies as it cools. The tissue is built by the 3-D printer in layers. A gelatin-based ink acts as extracellular matrix—the structural mix of proteins and other biological molecules that surrounds cells in the body. Two other inks contained the gelatin material and either mouse or human skin cells. All these inks are viscous enough to maintain their structure after being laid down by the printer.

A third ink with counterintuitive behavior helped the team create the hollow tubes. This ink has a Jell-O-like consistency at room temperature, but when cooled it liquefies. The team printed tracks of this ink amongst the others. After chilling the patch of printed tissue, the researchers applied a light vacuum to remove the special ink, leaving behind empty channels within the structure. Then cells that normally line blood vessels in the body can be infused into the channels.

The smallest channels printed were about 75 micrometers in diameter, which is much larger than the tiny capillaries that exchange nutrients and waste throughout the body. The hope is that the 3-D printing method will set the overall architecture of blood vessels within artificial tissue and then smaller blood vessels will develop along with the rest of the tissue. “We view this as a method to print the larger vessels; then we want to harness biology to do the rest of the work,” says Lewis.

Google takes consumers’ wrists to next frontier with Android watch

Posted on March 19, 2014 by admin

Voice-controlled smartwatches that track heart rates and connect to phones and tablets will debut later this year as Google Inc partners with electronics, technology and fashion companies to take consumers to the next promised frontier in computing.

Google on Tuesday unveiled plans to help develop the watches and other wearable computers based on its Android mobile operating system, which already runs more than three out of four smartphones sold worldwide.

The Android Wear project is open to software makers to create apps for the watches, putting Google at the forefront of efforts to jumpstart the nascent wearable computing market.

The news comes as speculation swirls around iPhone-maker Apple Inc’s plans for wearable computers, including a smartwatch of its own. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has promised new “product categories” later this year.

A video posted on Google’s blog on Tuesday showed people speaking into their watches to check sports scores, control music, send replies to text messages and even open their home garages.

By aligning itself with a broad spectrum of partners to develop the smartwatches, Google is hoping to replicate the success that helped make its free Android software the most popular smartphone operating system, analysts said.

LG Electronics said on Tuesday it would introduce its first Android watch, the G Watch, in the second quarter. Motorola said its Moto 360 Android watch would be available this summer. Fossil Group Inc, which makes watches, handbags and other accessories, also announced that it was working with Google on Android devices.

Many believe wearable computers represent the next big shift in technology, just as smartphones evolved from personal computers, but efforts by various companies so far have had mixed results.

Samsung was among the first to sell a smartwatch for consumers, but its maiden effort, the Galaxy Gear, was widely panned by reviewers.

Google’s announcement “definitely gives wearables a status that it’s a market in its own right and it needs to be treated with the respect that a separate operating system branch gives it,” said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst with Kantar World Panel.

FITNESS TRACKERS

Android smartwatches will connect wirelessly to a mobile phone and can be outfitted with a variety of sensors, Google said. That means that apps developed for Android watches will be able to monitor fitness and health information such as a wearer’s heart rate or distance jogged.

Google released an Android Wear Developer Preview on Tuesday, saying it would allow software makers to begin creating specialized apps for the watches.

Google has also been developing Google Glass, a small stamp-sized screen attached to a pair of eyeglass frames. Google Glass can record video, access email, provide turn-by-turn driving directions and retrieve info from the Web by connecting wirelessly to a user’s cell phone, but it has also raised concerns ranging from privacy intrusions to distracted driving.

Smartwatches have a better chance of catching on with the general public than Google Glass, said Ramon Llamas, an analyst with industry research firm IDC.

“It’s a really cool idea, but there’s something that creeps people out about it,” Llamas said of Google Glass.

The success of smartwatches will depend on the device’s price, battery life and the appeal of the watches’ designs, he said.

Motorola said it would share more details about its forthcoming Moto 360 smartwatch when it holds a special online press conference on Wednesday. Google recently announced plans to sell its Motorola business to Chinese PC-maker Lenovo Group Ltd.

Juniper Research expects more than 130 million smart wearable devices will ship by 2018. Moreover, global shipments of wearable “smart glasses” alone will reach 10 million each year by 2018, compared with an estimated 87,000 in 2013, according to the research firm.

MUST HAVE OR NICE TO HAVE?

Google, whose projects range from self-driving cars to robots, likely sees smartwatches as part of the future evolution of computing, said Raymond James analyst Aaron Kessler. But he said it remained to be seen whether smartwatches will become an indispensable digital accessory or a “nice-to-have” gadget.

“At this point I would still view it as a niche product,” he said.

Among the more than 10 companies that are partnering with Google on Android watches are Samsung Electronics Co, HTC Corp, Asustek Computer Inc, Intel Corp, Qualcomm Inc, Broadcom Corp and Mediatek Inc.

Qualcomm and its manufacturing customers are working on “multiple” wearable devices based on its Snapdragon processors, spokesman Jon Carvill said. He declined to elaborate.

“We’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s possible with mobile technology,” Google said in a post on its official blog on Tuesday. “That’s why we’re so excited about wearables — they understand the context of the world around you, and you can interact with them simply and efficiently, with just a glance or a spoken word.”

Shares of Google closed 1.6 percent higher at $1,211.22 on Tuesday. Shares of Fossil Group rose 4.6 percent to $118.04.

Alibaba plans IPO that could break Facebook’s record, Yahoo shares jump By Jeremy C. Owens

Posted on March 19, 2014 by admin

Alibaba plans to hold its initial public offering — which could be the largest ever for a technology company — in the United States, and Yahoo is already reaping rewards from its early investment in the Chinese powerhouse, with the Sunnyvale company’s stock shooting higher Monday morning.

Alibaba officially announced Sunday that it would file for an IPO in the United States instead of Hong Kong, though the e-commerce company news release said that a future filing in China for a dual listing is possible.

“This will make us a more global company and enhance the company’s transparency, as well as allow the company to continue to pursue our long-term vision and ideals,” the company’s statement read.

An employee walks past a logo of Alibaba Group at its new base on the outskirts of Hangzhou, China, on Nov. 4, 2013. (JEFF LEE/EPA)

Founded by Jack Ma in 1999, the Hangzhou, China, company is well-known internationally for its self-titled website, which links small and medium-sized businesses around the world with manufacturers in China and elsewhere. The approach helped Alibaba enjoy an annual growth rate of about 50 percent of registered users from the U.S. from 2008 to 2012, when it reached 6.2 million American users at the end of last year; total membership checked in at 36.7 million registered users from more than 240 countries and regions, with more than 2.8 million supplier online storefronts and more than 5,900 product categories.

The company has its hands in several other pies as well, including its Taobao Internet retail website, which launched in 2003 and is analogous in China to eBay or Amazon in the states. In fact, Alibaba Group claims a larger gross merchandise volume — a measure roughly equal to gross sales — than eBay or Amazon combined, and could eclipse Wal-Mart in sales within five years.

Yahoo invested $1 billion for a 40 percent stake in the company in 2005, when the Sunnyvale Internet company’s cofounder, Jerry Yang, was CEO. Yahoo has already realized large profits from the deal, with current CEO Marissa Mayer selling half of that stake back to Alibaba for $6.3 billion in cash and $800 million in preferred stock in the company, as well as a cash payment of $550 million for intellectual property and other considerations.

Yahoo came away from that deal with about $4 billion after taxes, the bulk of which was used to buy back stock, while still holding on to a stake of about 24 percent of Alibaba. Investor excitement has shown up in Yahoo’s stock price, which more than doubled in 2013 despite the company’s revenues showing few signs of growth. Alibaba’s revenues topped Yahoo’s for the first time in 2013, when the Chinese company’s sales flew 65 percent higher to finish higher than $6 billion, while Yahoo’s revenues declined 6.1 percent to $4.7 billion, according to Yahoo’s annual report.

Yahoo’s shares roared higher again after the IPO announcement, gaining 4 percent Monday to close at $39.11.

“There are certainly some smart investments that I owe to my predecessors. Very notably, Jerry Yang’s investment in Alibaba is something that people are very excited about,” Mayer said at a conference in San Francisco last year.

While Alibaba has not established how many shares it expects to sell nor a preliminary price range, experts say the company is currently worth as much as $200 billion, topping Amazon’s market capitalization, $172 billion. An IPO that comes anywhere near that type of valuation would easily top Facebook’s $104 billion value during its May 2012 IPO, when the Menlo Park social network raked in $16 billion, the most ever for a technology company.

Alibaba’s negotiations to list its company in Hong Kong fell apart because Alibaba refused to change its unique management structure to abide by that exchange’s rules, according to reports late last year. Hong Kong’s exchange does not allow dual-class stock structures that give early investors greater power than new stockholders, a tactic used by several Silicon Valley powerhouses including Google and Facebook; while Alibaba is not seeking a dual-share structure, its partnership model allows the partners to dictate who sits on the company’s board instead of shareholders, which Hong Kong would not allow.

Microbes and Metabolites Fuel an Ambitious Aging Project

Posted on March 18, 2014 by admin

Craig Venter’s new company wants to improve human longevity by creating the world’s largest, most comprehensive database of genetic and physiological information. WHY IT MATTERS: A better understanding of human aging could help researchers treat many diseases.

Last week, genomics entrepreneur Craig Venter announced his latest venture: a company that will create what it calls the most comprehensive and complete data set on human health to tackle diseases of aging.

Human Longevity, based in San Diego, says it will sequence some 40,000 human genomes per year to start, using Illumina’s new high-throughput sequencing machines (see “Does Illumina Have the First $1,000 Genome?”). Eventually, it plans to work its way up to 100,000 genomes per year. The company will also sequence the genomes of the body’s multitudes of microbial inhabitants, called the microbiome, and analyze the thousands of metabolites that can be found in blood and other patient samples.

But despite decades of research on aging and age-related diseases, there are no treatments to slow aging, and diseases like cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s continue to plague patients. A more comprehensive approach to studying human aging could help, says Guarente. The key is to go beyond genome sequencing by looking at gene activity and changes in the array of proteins and other molecules found in patient samples.

To that end, Human Longevity will collaborate withMetabolon, a company based in Durham, North Carolina, to profile the metabolites circulating in the bloodstreams of study participants. Metabolon was an early pioneer in the field of metabolomics, which catalogues the amino acids, fats, and other small molecules in a blood or other sample to develop more accurate diagnostic tests for diseases (see “10 Emerging Technologies 2005: Metabolomics”).

Metabolon uses mass spectrometry to identify small molecules in a sample. In a human blood sample, there are around 1,200 different types; Metabolon’s process can also determine the amount of each one present. While genome sequencing can provide information about inherited risk of disease and some hints of the likelihood that a person will have a long life, metabolic data provides information on how environment, diet, and other features of an individual’s life affect health.

Metabolic data can also help researchers interpret the results of genome-based studies, which can often pinpoint a particular gene as important in a disease or a normal cellular process without clarifying what that gene actually does. If a particular metabolite is found to correlate with a particular genetic signal in a study, then researchers have a clue as to the function of the DNA signal.

And changes in blood metabolites are not just caused by changes in human cell behavior: the microbes that live in our bodies produce metabolites that can be detected in blood, says John Ryals, CEO and founder of Metabolon. “When you get certain diseases, we believe your gut microbiome is changing its composition, and that leads to changes in what molecules are being made,” he says.

Ryals says his company, working with collaborators, has already shown that blood biochemistry changes with aging: “You can tell how old someone is just by looking at their metabolites.”

Human Longevity says it will license information from its databases to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as academics.

Microsoft shares flirt with dotcom-boom levels on iPad app report

Posted on March 18, 2014 by admin

(Reuters) – Microsoft Corp’s shares scaled levels last seen in the dotcom boom on Tuesday following reports that the company plans to unveil an iPad version of its Office software suite, potentially generating billions of dollars in revenue.

Reuters reported on Monday that new Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella would unveil the iPad app at an event on March 27 as part of his “mobile first cloud first” strategy.

The event would be Nadella’s first major public appearance since his appointment last month.

Microsoft shares rose as much as 5 percent to $39.90, adding $15 billion to the company’s market value. At that price, the stock was up about 10 percent since the announcement of Nadella’s appointment on February 4. The shares last touched $40 in July 2000.

Microsoft has had iPad and iPhone versions of Office primed for several months now, sources told Reuters, but the company has dallied on their release due to internal divisions, among other things.

Analysts said the lack of an Office version for the iPad may have robbed Microsoft of billions of dollars in revenue. (Reuters Insider: reut.rs/1gC77rr)

“We estimate that if 10 percent of the iPad install base were to subscribe to Office then this could add 15 million subscribers and generate $1.1 billion to $1.5 billion in consumer Office subscription revenue per year,” Bernstein Research analyst Mark Moerdler said in a note on Tuesday.

Investors have for years urged Microsoft to adapt Office, its most profitable product, for iPhones and iPads and devices using Google Inc’s Android software rather than shackling it to Windows as PC sales decline.

Barclays analyst Raimo Lenschow said the plan to launch the iPad app would signal that Microsoft is moving towards a more serious cross-platform strategy.

Moerdler said he did not believe that the app would have any significant positive or negative impact on Microsoft’s Windows franchise as most corporate customers use Windows.

Microsoft already offers Office Online on its Windows smartphones and as a free Web-based version.

Google Inc has been making inroads into Microsoft’s Office software business with its free Google Drive application, which includes spreadsheets and word-processing tools.

Last year, Apple offered free upgrades for life on its iWork business software, which includes rival applications to Microsoft’s Excel, Word and PowerPoint, for Macbooks, Mac computers and iPad.

Microsoft shares were trading up 3.6 percent at $39.42 in midday trading on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee and Soham Chatterjee in Bangalore; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)