OneNote does hold a major advantage over Evernote, though: it’s included in Office for Windows.

Evernote CEO Phil Libin has big plans for the company, which he wants to see live on for the next hundred years. The company has kept growing since then, and is looking towards an IPO. While Evernote may not have seemed like much when it launched five years ago, it now presents a credible threat to OneNote: the company raised a total of $155 million from a pair of rounds in 2012 at a valuation over $1 billion. Offering the app for free would be a major move, and one that shows how seriously Microsoft wants to compete with Evernote. Windows 8 users can get a free version of OneNote that’s optimized for tablets, but Microsoft also offers the app for $70, or as a part of an Office 365 subscription. While Microsoft has released free versions of OneNote for iOS and Android users in addition to Windows Phone, the app hasn’t yet made an appearance on the Mac. That’s a stark contrast to Microsoft’s strategy for OneNote, which was an exclusive to the Windows version of Office when it launched in 2003.

Evernote windows version