Office 2016 has been released

There is still 2 main ways to buy.  There is an annual subscription or a purchase.

Subscription

With the annual subscription you subscribe to use office for 12 months you can pay monthly or annually with a small discount for annual billing.  With the subscription you can also install the software on up to 5 devices including 2 mobile devices.  However all the devices MUST be used by the same user and is tracked based on email addresses used.  If a user has more than 2 PC/Laptops and wants the mobile apps then this can be a great option but if you only have one machine it is more expensive than purchasing.

Purchase

In the purchase options there is 3 options for businesses.  First is OEM it is purchased with a PC and is licensed to just that PC.  It is the least expensive but if the computer is replaced you need to buy new office.  Then there is retail, this is more expensive than OEM but can be moved to a new machine if the machine is replaced.  Lastly there is Open License.  With OL you get a single key and the ability to install it on as many computers as you purchase.  Usually with OL there is a reduced number of package choices but if you have 25 computers or more this can be a cost effective option.

Packages

Much like 2013 there are 2 Business packages.  Home and Business and Professional.  Home and Business Includes Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and One Note.  Office Professional Includes  Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and One Note, Plus Access and Publisher.

There are other packages like Personal or Home but they are not licensed to be used in a business environment so for this article we are not going to discuss them.

Whats New

In general Microsoft is moving to a platform that is going to make it easier to use multiple devices both PC/laptop and mobile as well as share between users.

There are a couple of new features that caught my eye.

Mail Triage – for those of you that do not delete email it is supposed to help you prioritize your email based on how you use email.  This will help in multiple ways First with Spam.  It will learn who you correspond with and keep them out of your spam box as well as lower the priority of marketing emails that you likely subscribed to but are cluttering up your mailbox.

New Charts – In Word, Excel and Power Point there are some new reports that can make great presentations.

Forecasting in Excel – there is a new feature that can help you if your trying to forecast based on historical data. With one simple click, create forecast charts based on historical data and predict future trends. This new capability uses the industry standard Exponential Smoothing (ETS) algorithm to give you reliable forecasting data.

There are many more new features but these are the ones that i see will help many of our customers. for more information check out this LINK