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"Microsoft corporate vice president of communications Frank Shaw has criticised Apple&amp;#039;s iWork productivity apps, describing them as &amp;quot;watered down&amp;quot;. The Cupertino firm recently announced that its iWork suite will be available for free with all new Mac and iOS device purchases, but the executive believes that the software pales in comparison to Office.   &amp;quot;iWork has never gotten much traction, and was already priced like an afterthought,&amp;quot; said Shaw in a blog post. &amp;quot;When I see Apple drop the price of their struggling, lightweight productivity apps, I don&amp;#039;t see a shot across our bow, I see an attempt to play catch up.&amp;quot; Shaw&amp;#039;s words come after Apple criticised its rivals at its recent iPad event. Tim Cook said: &amp;quot;The competition is confused&amp;quot;, while Eddy Cue quipped, &amp;quot;You can even collaborate [iWork] with a friend stuck on a PC.&amp;quot; The executive was also quick to point out that Office comes bundled with Microsoft&amp;#039;s latest Surface tablets, which are available at lower prices than Apple&amp;#039;s iPad range.  &amp;quot;Surface and Surface 2 both include Office, the world&amp;#039;s most popular, most powerful productivity software for free and are priced below both the iPad 2 and iPad Air respectively,&amp;quot; he added. &amp;quot;Apple&amp;#039;s decision to build the price of their less popular and less powerful iWork into their tablets [is] not a very big (or very good) deal.&amp;quot; Microsoft unveiled its Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets last month, offering increased processing power and battery life, as well as display and camera resolution. Watch a video introducing Surface Pro 2 below:      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/apps/news/a526144/microsoft-criticises-watered-down-apple-iwork-apps/>