In an effort to directly take on popular cross-platform note taking application Evernote, Microsoft will finally be bringing its OneNote service to the Mac later this month in the form of a free app, according to a new report.
For years, OneNote has been tied to Microsoft's Office suite and has been focused on the Windows platform. But according to The Verge, the Redmond, Wash., company is now focused on making it a free service for all users, whether they are on Windows or Mac.
The news comes just after it was also revealed that Microsoft is planning to release an update to Office for Mac this year. That expected launch would mark the first major update to the productivity suite in nearly four years.
Microsoft has offered an official OneNote app for iOS since early 2011, and an Android application has also been available. However, until now, OneNote has not seen its own dedicated application for Apple's OS X platform.
The upcoming cross-platform update to OneNote is expected to include support for web clipper plugins in popular browsers. This will allow users to quickly save content from the Web and sync it across devices with OneNote.
Microsoft's anticipated efforts are said to be a response to free competing services such as Evernote, which already has a strong presence on Apple's devices with free applications for both iOS and OS X. Evernote has offered its own web clipper browser plugins for sometime, including support for Apple's Safari, and most recently revamped that software last November.