On Friday a mobile version of Microsoft Office's Word program rose to No. 2 among the free apps offered in the Apple App Store.

According to CNET, the surge in downloads came one day after Microsoft said that customers were no long requred to buy an Office 365 subscription in order to edit Word documents on the iPhone app.

At its highest point, the Microsoft Word app fell just short of outselling Facebook Messenger but was ahead of Facebook itself, along with all of the other free app offerings.

Other Microsoft Office apps, like Excel and PowerPoint, are also available for free individual app download as of Thursday on Apple's smartphones and the iPad. They also don't require an Office 365 subscription to view and perform basic editing on projects. However, advanced options are still only available with an Office 365 purchase.

Excel, the spreadsheet technology in the Office suite, also shot up to number seven on the free apps top downloads list.

The relaxed rules also allow Word documents from Dropbox to be changed thanks to a new partnership between the tech giant and the cloud storage company. Part of this change from Microsoft's mobile department is a shift in strategy from new CEO Satya Nadella, who took over leadership in February.

In past years, Microsoft offered its suite to Windows Phone users but had been limited usage among iOS and Android phones until 2013. However, Windows Phones only account for 2.5 percent of worldwide mobile devices and iOS and Android collectively dominating the market with 93 percent of smartphones. It therefore made sense to add more Office users that could potentially lead to more paid subscribers.

Microsoft has been testing its software for Android tablets and said its apps could become available as soon as 2015. Similar versions for Android phones will be released shortly afterward.

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