Microsoft Office to become Microsoft 365

Written By: Donna Aplin
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You’re likely to be familiar with Microsoft’s subscription service, currently known as Office 365, however, this week the tech giant has announced this will become Microsoft 365 and evolving beyond productivity apps.

The change will be effective from next month (November 2022), and the new service will be full of extra tools ‘to make you more productive’. We understand that pricing will remain the same, but the offering from Microsoft will be much broader, giving you extra value for money. You’ll still be able to access all the Office apps that you’re used to, and the names of these tools won’t change. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Outlook, Clipchamp, Stream and Designer aren’t going anywhere, although Microsoft has promised a new central hub for information showing your upcoming meetings and files stored in OneDrive.

If you’re a fan of accessing any of the tools above online through Office.com rather than using the installed apps on your mobile devices or desktop, these will switch to only being available through Microsoft365.com with a shiny new logo. Users can expect the new tools and apps to be rebranded officially in January 2023 and Microsoft will stop rolling out new updates to Office 2021 software. If you have an Office 365 subscription instead of having purchased the apps for a one-time fee, there are no changes to your subscription plan, and you will continue to receive new features.

Rest assured, Microsoft Office is not disappearing – it’s one of Microsoft’s oldest and most popular brands. What Microsoft is trying to achieve here is removing Office as the main brand for its vast productivity tools and replacing that with Microsoft 365, and keeping the Office brand around to refer to the legacy products, most of which are desktop applications.

If you have any questions about the upcoming changes and what this means for your organisation, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us via sales@espprojects.co.uk or by telephone on 0330 2020 118 – we’d be happy to answer any questions.