Microsoft rolls out major Office Store refresh, launches new international markets and more

Microsoft has rolled out a major refresh to the Office Store, along with the launch of new international markets and increased visibility of third-party apps. Microsoft wants to make it easier for customers to find relevant apps faster.

“In a year filled with big plans for the Office Store, we’re excited to make a trio of announcements today: a major refresh of the Store experience; the launch of multiple new international markets; and increased visibility of third-party Store apps to both customers and Office sales and deployment partners,” Microsoft stated in an official blog post.

We haven’t really heard much about the Office Store, as the focus has been on the Windows Store and Windows Phone Store. But that has now changed, as Microsoft has improved the developer experience for the Office Store. It now features faster onboarding of new apps to join the 1,000 apps already available, along with more interactive and frequently updated analytics tools. 

The Office Store lets customers find relevant apps faster with its new home page design, along with improvements to the free-text search tool. Repeat visitors to the site will see the best and latest apps near the top of the home page, all due to the new robust ranking service that showcases a unique set of apps every day.

Microsoft has also added support for apps in three new languages, which include Dutch, Italian, and Russian. Microsoft plans to add support for Portuguese (Brazil) and two versions of Chinese (traditional and simplified) next month. “With these new languages, we’ll gain fully localized apps and storefronts for Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Russia, with localized apps and storefronts for Brazil, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong SAR to follow soon after. Full rollout will give us apps in 10 languages and 31 localized storefronts in all! In the coming months we’ll add localized storefronts for many other markets where Office is sold,” Microsoft added.

Microsoft has lot planned for the Office Store over the next few months, including new developer APIs, better visibility of apps inside Office products, and much more.