Microsoft Reportedly Launching OneNote for Mac as a Free App ‘Soon’

Microsoft has offered a Mac version of its Office productivity suite for years, but one key advantage enjoyed exclusively by Windows users was OneNote, the company’s popular note taking and organization software. First launched in 2003, OneNote has been limited to Windows and, recently, mobile applications. But that may change in the next few weeks, as surprising rumors indicate that Microsoft is preparing a free, full-fledged OneNote for Mac app.

Sources speaking with ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley claim that the introduction of OneNote for Mac is part of a broader push by Microsoft to get the software into the hands of more users. In addition to its OS X plans, Microsoft is reportedly also planning to make the Windows version of the app, which today costs $70 on its own, free for all users.

Also accompanying the OneNote for Mac release will be new versions of Clipper and Office Lens. The former lets users quickly grab screen captures and data for inclusion in synced OneNote notebooks while the latter provides optical character recognition for images containing text.

An updated version of Office for Mac is already set for release later this year, but sources within Microsoft seem to indicate that the OneNote for Mac app will arrive sooner. It’s therefore unclear at this point if Microsoft will wait to launch OneNote for Mac alongside the new Office, or if the app’s reportedly “free” price point will let the company release it earlier as a standalone product.

While OneNote is today a popular component of Office for Windows, free cross-platform third party solutions such as Evernote have exploded in popularity in recent years. Microsoft’s reported plans for OneNote can therefore be directly tied to competition with these third party services. As mentioned, the company already offers the software on Windows, the Web, and mobile platforms. Adding an OS X version coupled with more robust cross-platform syncing, as well as making the whole package free, would serve as a compelling alternative to services like Evernote.