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*Updated* Chromebooks With Play Store No Longer “Compatible” With Microsoft Android Apps

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by Gabriel Brangers
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download_20161107_125816*Update*

There has been an update to this article. you can find the up-to-date report here.

Recent reports from Chromebook users are saying Microsoft’s Android versions of their Office Apps are no longer compatible with Chrome OS devices. An early morning post from our friends over at Chrome Story broke the news and further investigation inside the Chrome OS community and a check of our own devices have confirmed the report.




Microsoft Office applications such has Excel, Word and PowerPoint have been free stand-alone apps for Android users since June of last year. These applications are fully functional to create, edit and share Office files. The Android Apps are most certainly viewed as companion applications for users who also utilize Microsoft Office in a desktop environment. For this reason, Microsoft’s offering of free mobile apps was a mark in their favor to help push their product.

The implementation of Android Apps on Chromebooks may very well have changed the road map for the Office suite of applications. Microsoft Office has long been a major source of revenue for the company and being able to access these applications for free in a “desktop” environment would be detrimental to bottom-line of the product.

So Are Office Apps Gone For Good?

What direction Microsoft will take with Office on Chromebooks is yet to be seen. There have been no official announcements and as of now it certainly appears Chrome OS users will have to find an alternative to access Office products.




The good news is the majority of these applications are now available in an online format at Office.com. If you are still interested in having an offline, installed application, Microsoft offers a number of options from student, personal and business; for a monthly or yearly subscription.

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Microsoft Office 365 Subscription Plans

That very well may be why we are now seeing the Android Apps unavailable for Chromebooks. While some would believe Microsoft is attempting to cut Google’s legs out from under them, more likely they are calculating how to leverage their Office software for Chromebooks that will prevent a loss in software revenue.

  • Konstantinos

    The same way users slowly recover from their long windows addiction and start adapting other OSs, they will also abandon MS Office.

    Why pay such a premium? There are great alternatives for Chromebooks and Android (Google Docs, WPS Office) but my favourite is full LibreOffice under Linux-Crouton! It is full fledged suite with more features than MS Office for Android and I use it every day on my ThinkPad 13 Chromebook.

  • Some of us in the legal profession are just hooked in for various reasons. Try doing a mail merge in Google Docs. Not as fun. I haven’t even tried pleading paper. Print envelopes is hokey at best. And the rest of the profession is on Word so you’ve got no choice anyway. I was looking forward to trying the Android app on a Chromebook as I’m already a subscriber to Office online. The web version is limited and I’ve had problems even opening some word documents. This is a real bummer for me as it looks like I will be tied to Windows for the foreseeable future.

    • Konstantinos

      You can use LibreOffice on a Chromebook with Crouton, it is fully compatible with Word and has all the features. You can even use desktop MS Word on a Chromebook if you don’t like LibreOffice with Crouton-Linux-Wine. There is no reason to use Windows really.

  • This makes sense. I was really surprised MS was letting this happen. I’d be 100% totally fine with the Android/Chrome version being a paid app, just like it is on the iPad and every desktop-style platform. I bet MS is merely pulling the free version before the imminent release of the Chrome/Android merger, so that they can re-release a paid version in the near future.

    Maybe even as part of the big announcement! LOL. Probably not on that one. 🙂

  • RetiredTechie

    In the Windows environment–now hear me out–the Office products are free for devices of screen size 10.1″ or smaller; they are called Mobile apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).

    I am wondering if the 10.1″ cut-off is now applying to Chromebook users… can anyone chime in of they have a 10.1″ or smaller Chromebook as to whether the MS Office apps work for them?

    I do not have a large Android tablet (12″?) so I don’t know it those are ‘allowed’ to run Microsoft’s apps.

  • David M Fahey

    Not all of us are willing to learn how to use Crouton. Some of us write for publications that expect Word documents or at least endnote citations.