After more than 30 years, Microsoft has decided to rebrand Microsoft Office, its popular productivity suite, to Microsoft 365. The change will begin rolling out for Office.com next month, according to a FAQ published on the official Microsoft 365 site, with the rebrand coming to the Office app on Windows and the Office mobile app in January 2023. Microsoft Office’s new branding will apply to all users.
From the official Microsoft 365 FAQ:
- What is changing?
- Over the last couple years, Microsoft 365 has evolved into our flagship productivity suite, so we are creating an experience to help you get the most out of Microsoft 365. In the coming months, Office.com, the Office mobile app, and the Office app for Windows will become the Microsoft 365 app, with a new icon, a new look, and even more features.
- When will these changes happen?
- Changes will begin rolling out for Office.com in November 2022. And then changes will begin rolling out for the Office app on Windows and the Office mobile app in January 2023.
- Who will these changes apply to?
- These changes will apply to everyone who uses the Office app for work, school, or personal use.
- What is Microsoft 365?
- Microsoft 365 is our cloud-powered productivity platform that includes apps like Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, and so much more. You can get started with free web and mobile apps or upgrade to a premium plan for access to more apps, storage, and features.
- Is Office going away entirely?
- No, as part of Microsoft 365 you will continue to get access to apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. We will also continue to offer one-time purchases of those apps to consumers and businesses via Office 2021 and Office LTSC plans.
Microsoft 365 is sold under various plans, including a Microsoft 365 Family plan that enables access for up to six people with up to 6 TB of cloud storage for $99.99/year. Additional benefits of the service include ad-free email, data and device protection, and more.
Discussion (12 replies)
Join Discussion →Meh not surprised. Subscription bucks are the sweetest bucks for investors.
I been calling it LibreOffice for a long time now. My progeny will not know MS 365 unless strictly required for a job or whatever.
That's dumb. Rebranding for the sake of rebranding.
Whenever you change a name away from something descriptive to something non-descriptive, you have taken a step backwards.
I suspect they will be rolling this into OS subscriptions with your Office sub that is now a MS sub. With more cloud integration.
Unfortunately, almost every single workplace uses Office/365.
I am strongly resisting Outlook at the moment - it's all our company uses for email, but I can't stand it, and I keep running into "quirks" with the Exchange server that, mysteriously, work fine via outlook but are broken via any other standards-compliant email/calendar clients.
There comes a time when you just have to cave and use what everyone else is using - it’s not worth your time to fight the system and deal with the issues no one else is having because they go with the flow. I’ve also never worked at a place that didn’t use outlook for email. I’m sure there are places out there that don’t, but you have to deal with outlook / office basically everywhere you go, so might as well get used to it.
You are not wrong.
I worked for a company that used pegasus mail, can't say it was good, but useable
Wow, I remember using that back in the '90's on Novell
I will never subscribe to any software.
I can't stop my employers from doing so, but for my own machines I just won't. If windo s goes that way, I guess I won't use Windows anymore.
It's not a huge leap. I barely use Windows at home today.
Dumb. MS has the monopoly on enterprise "office" suite, so hey let's change the name. I generally dislike the 365 online versions, but I have used from time to time for work and.... it is what it is.
My uncle's employer won't even pay for office. So people there either use old arr-matey ancient versions or use Libre or Google Docs. I mean technically, has word or excel drastically changed since 2008?
No, nothing signicant has changed in 20 years. They keep revamping the UI, and polishing out the bugs they created while doing so. MS can shove their subscription services for software like this. Im okay subscription for music, games, video. But that is an expanding library of different things. If they do windows subscription, they can shove that too, I don't care how difficult of how much I lose. I aint doing it, ever. Neither will I adobe, or any other similar software. No, no and no. Too many monthly crap in my life already. Way too many.