South Korean software developer Hancom officially detailed its Office Mobile suite of productivity apps that comes pre-installed on the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus in the United States. In a release published on Monday, the Seoul-based company stated that its software lineup is both compatible with Microsoft’s Office productivity suite and capable of serving as a standalone solution for creating, editing, and sharing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Apart from mobile versions of the apps that have been optimized specifically for the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, Hancom also released complete versions of its Office Mobile lineup on the Galaxy Apps digital marketplace available exclusively to Samsung-made devices.
While all lightweight versions of the company’s tools were designed to be as quick and efficient as possible for completing simple tasks, the more robust variants of the apps were built specifically for the Samsung Desktop Experience (DeX) station, a smartphone accessory that can be used to dock the Galaxy S8 and connect it to an external monitor and conventional computer peripherals. The Office Mobile suite that’s available for download from the Galaxy Apps store ships with the ability to automatically switch between mobile and desktop modes whenever a user docks or undocks their Galaxy S8, the company said. All full-featured versions of Hancom’s apps are available to owners of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus free of charge and will be available for other Samsung-made and third-party smartphones and tablets in the second half of the year, the Seoul-based software developer said, without providing a more specific release window.
While the fact that Samsung opted to partner with a domestic software developer in order to pre-load certain productivity apps onto its new flagship duo isn’t entirely surprising, it’s still somewhat unexpected in the context of the U.S. market where Microsoft’s Office suite is far more popular than Hancom’s products, especially since the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus ship with pre-installed versions of Microsoft’s productivity tools in most other parts of the world. Samsung’s decision to partner with Hancom in the U.S. seemingly hasn’t significantly affected its collaborative efforts with Microsoft as the Redmond, Washington-based tech giant is reportedly selling its very own variants of the Galaxy S8-series devices.