It may be one of Microsoft Corp.’s biggest squandered opportunities. Tired of waiting for Office to be optimised for their mobile gadgets, a growing contingent of younger companies is turning to cheaper, simpler and touch-friendly apps that can perform word processing and other tasks in the cloud.

Take Artivest Holdings Inc., a New York-based financial services start-up that sells alternative investment products. The New York-based company uses an app called Quip, which combines word processing and messaging, to handle all but the most sensitive legal and financial files.

The speed with which apps like Quip have been adopted is forcing Microsoft to intensify its efforts to bring the powerful but ageing Office software suite to tablets and smartphones, according to people close to the company.

Microsoft already has a full iPhone and iPad version of Office ready for release, the sources said. The only question is when chief executive Satya Nadella, who took over in February, will pull the trigger.

Nadella wants to widen Office’s customer base but has to balance that with the flagship Windows franchise, which benefits greatly from tight integration with Office, especially on desktop computers.

Investors for years have urged Microsoft to adapt Office, its most profitable product, for mobile devices from Apple Inc. and Google Inc. – rather than shackling it to Windows as PC sales decline.

“Look at the applications that are on the rise to support mobile. It is not Microsoft OneNote or Word. It’s Dropbox, or Evernote,” said Ted Schadler, an analyst at tech research firm Forrester.

“It’s really about being everywhere. That’s an important, immediate decision that Satya’s going to have to drive.”

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.