San Francisco ( CNN ) -- For Microsoft 's latest version of its Office suite , the company is betting big that making documents accessible across multiple devices , a cleaned-up design and improved collaboration features will keep the product relevant to today 's users . Microsoft announced the Windows 8-friendly products , Office 13 and Office 365 , at a press event on Monday . It 's a major overhaul meant to help it fight a shrinking PC market , free Web-based competitors and consumer influence in corporate IT departments . `` In a sense , it feels to us a lot like 1995 , '' said an excited Steve Ballmer , Microsoft CEO , at the event . The nostalgia might be for the year Internet Explorer made its public debut , but the much-repeated theme of the new version of Office is that it 's the `` modern Office . '' Office reigns as Microsoft 's most lucrative product and maintains a 90 % market share of PCs , according to research firm Gartner . But recent years have seen a slew of inexpensive and free competitors nipping at its heels -- most notably Google Apps , a cloud-based suite of software for word processing , spreadsheets , presentations and e-mail . The Google tools lack some of the features found in Microsoft Office , but to many users that simplicity is part of their appeal . `` Keeping the market is always a challenge , especially when you 're competing against free or cheap , but Microsoft has been competing against cheaper and free suites for more than a decade and continues to do pretty well , '' said Gartner analyst Michael Silver . Microsoft is still taking Google 's encroachment seriously and has even created a special `` Google Compete '' team to prevent corporate Office users from making the jump to Google Apps , according to The Wall Street Journal . In addition to preventing users from switching to other products , Microsoft must persuade them to upgrade from older versions of Office . In the past , a confusing design change or dropped support for plug-ins has been reason enough for users to skip the upgrade and stick with the version they 're comfortable with . Turnaround time can also be slow at large companies , where upgrading everyone is a costly and complicated undertaking . `` Organizations are still deploying Windows 7 and Office 2010 , and because of the urgency in getting Windows XP out by April 2014 when support ends , both Office 2013 and Windows 8 will likely have to take a back seat for a while , '' said Silver . While large corporations are slow to roll out new versions of software , there has been a recent shift in how they adopt technology . More and more , consumer technology is coming in the front door of businesses , being championed by the people who have to use it rather than the IT department . A bring-your-own-device trend was started by executives unwilling to leave their beloved iPhones at home , forcing companies to adapt quickly . The proliferation of free Google e-mail accounts led to casual users switching to Google Docs , and eventually pushing their employers to switch to Google Apps . Most of Monday 's Office demonstration was done on touchscreen devices -- a tablet as well as a massive 82-inch multitouch HD display connected to a Windows 8 PC . Expanding Office to tablets might be necessary for growth.The PC market has been struggling , with shipments of the desktop and laptop computers falling .1 % worldwide this past quarter compared to the same period last year . The smartphones and tablets are second and third devices , but users want to be able to work effectively from all of them and that requires cloud-based software . So for the time being , Office must straddle two worlds so as not to lose customers . `` You can still buy software and install it , '' said Ballmer . `` That 's not going away , at least certainly not at this stage in the game . ''
Microsoft announces its Windows 8-friendly products , Office 13 and Office 365 . Office reigns as Microsoft 's most lucrative product with 90 % market share of PCs . Expanding Office to tablets may be necessary for growth .