Neil Hughes and Kasper Jade are reporting that iWork ’11 is planned to be released alongside the Mac App Store. Writing last week on AppleInsider:

People familiar with the matter say development of iWork ’11 wrapped up this fall and the software was initially slated for an introduction alongside iLife ’11 last month, but was held back at the last minute for undisclosed reasons.

Apple’s revised plans currently call for the company to launch the new productivity suite alongside the forthcoming Mac App Store, these same people say.

iWork was prominently displayed in the Mac App Store during the on-stage demo at last months event and is also shown in images on Apple’s Mac App Store page.

Whether iWork ’11 is ready or not it would be smart of Apple to release them alongside the Mac App Store. iWork is a very popular software suite and the Mac App Store would benefit from a big application release being available exclusively in the Mac App Store on day one.