Microsoft© & Office

Microsoft 365 formerly Microsoft Office 365 is an extremely useful suite of business productivity software. If you don’t know about Microsoft Word and Excel you may have been living under a rock for the last number of years. I have always used a one time purchase copy of Microsoft Office installed on my one computer. This used to be the only option.

This page will help explain the current options available for Microsoft Office which is now called Microsoft 365. Or you can watch this quick video explanation of the Personal versions of Microsoft 365, but be sure to keep reading below for an explanation of Business versions.

Microsoft 365 has a free version which is available across all platforms and is accessed through a web browser only, no download or offline use. We will be happy to assist you in correctly creating a Microsoft account and utilizing this free service if you wish. The free version is unfortunately severely limited particularly in its inability to use macros.

For the home user Microsoft has two options, there is the Personal version which includes rights for only one person to use it, and then there is the Family version which includes rights for up to six people in the same family to use it.

For the business user there are a number of options.

The (free) version is called Microsoft 365 Business Basic and includes the free but limited online only versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint but include Teams, Exchange, One Drive, and SharePoint for those of us who have business needs for those cloud services.

This quick video will explain that Microsoft Teams allows you to work collaboratively (at the same time) on Microsoft Office documents.

The next level up is my general recommendation and it is called Microsoft 365 Apps. This includes a full version of all of your favourite Microsoft Office apps including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, and Access. This also includes the cloud service of One Drive but does not include Teams, Exchange, or Sharepoint. If you need to include those cloud services then you are interested in the next step up which is called Microsoft 365 Business Standard. The top of the line is called Microsoft 365 Business Premium and is only for people who require Microsoft In-Tune and Microsoft Azure Information Protection. This is generally only large corporate clients.

It looks like no one wants you to make a one time purchase and download and install it on your one computer. The arguments against it are that even though you will still get security updates you won’t get feature improvements and major version upgrades. Although these arguments have some real merit, if you just want to purchase it once, we still have that option. This product is called Office Home & Student 2019 and works on both PC and Mac computers.

One upgrade available for all Microsoft Office 365 products (except Home and Student 2019) is increased OneDrive storage.

If you have educational institution, enterprise, or government level needs please feel free to contact us directly 0800 77 9888 as you will not find those products listed publicly on this website.

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