For the second day in a row, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) has posted a new 52-week high, rising to $48.92 early Friday morning, after hitting $48.86 on Thursday before closing at $48.70. The last time shares were this high was January 2000 on their way down from an all-time high of nearly $60 a share in December 1999.

Friday’s gains were likely driven by the company’s announcement that it would offer free mobile Office apps for iOS and Android devices. Users will be able to create as well as read documents in Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats. Following the so-called freemium model, subscribers to Office 365 will have all the features of the mobile apps available. It was a smart move for Microsoft, and investors rewarded the company with a boost to the share price.

Friday’s gains may be tied to yet another announcement out of Redmond, this one hyping an announcement of the company’s first Microsoft-branded Lumia phone next Tuesday, November 11. The phone is rumored to be codenamed the Lumia RM 1090 and will come pre-installed with the latest version of Windows Phone 8.1. The device is also rumored to have just 8 MB of memory, which indicates that it will compete at the lower end of the smartphone market.

Microsoft shares traded down about 0.5% by early afternoon Friday, at $48.44 in a 52-week range of $34.63 to $48.92.

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