Published 12 Apr 2020

From April 21, Office 365 will become Microsoft 365, bringing the various personal, family, business, and enterprise offerings under the same name.

The move appears to be partly aimed at encouraging more adoption from home users by promoting it as a “subscription for your life”, much like you might regard a streaming or cable television subscription.

In a blog post, the company writes:

“Today, we are delighted to announce that on April 21st, Office 365 will become Microsoft 365, the subscription for your life to help you make the most of your time, connect, and protect the ones you love, and to develop and grow. An evolution of Office 365, Microsoft 365 builds on the foundation of Office infusing new artificial intelligence (AI), rich content and templates, and cloud-powered experiences to empower you to become a better writer, presenter, designer, manager of your finances, and deepen your connection to the people in your life.”

Office 365 already has more than 38 million subscribers, with each getting access to the latest office productivity software, advanced anti-phishing and anti-malware protection, along with 60 minutes’ call time to telephone lines through Skype and a terabyte of cloud storage. Microsoft says these users will see new features being rolled out in the months to come.

One such feature is a new family safety application to keep families safe, both digitally and physically. The Microsoft Teams application, which has been extensively used with so many people working from home, will also get some new features to enable people to connect and work together even more profoundly.

The Microsoft Editor will also be gaining a new AI-based service to help people with their writing. All users can take advantage of basic grammar and spelling checks in the online versions of Outlook and Word, but Microsoft 365 subscribers will get access to more features that will guide them in creating clearer, more concise texts. This will include a new similarity check, a first for Microsoft Word, to help users create original content that will not fall foul of plagiarism checks. The software will even help with citing appropriate sources. The new editor can even suggest rewrites for entire sentences.

Power Point will be getting a new Power Coach feature. This will listen to your diction and supply suggestions for when to vary the tone of your voice. It will also make phrasing suggestions to improve your speech. Once out of preview, this feature will only be available to Microsoft 365 subscribers.

Subscribers will also get access to a range of content for use in their documents, such more than 200 premium templates, 300 fresh fonts and 8,000 images.

The subscription-based model of Microsoft 365 is proving popular with individuals and businesses alike, because it ensures that you’re always running an up-to-date version of the productivity suite. If you have yet to make the move to Microsoft 365, we at Pro-Networks can supply office IT support to ensure a hassle-free migration to this cloud-based solution. We can even handle the administration for you.

 

Please share this post using any of the following share buttons.

Read similar posts to this article

Exploring Microsoft Power Automate

Microsoft 365 Migration, Licencing...

Microsoft Announce 9% Price Increas...