As Kleenex is for tissues and Coke is for soda,

Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook are all proprietary eponyms for their particular functions.

Read below to see what Microsoft is now offering in addition to the standard programs of the past decade or so.

Overall Computer Industry Shifts

A mere few years ago, if you wanted a program on your computer, you went to the store, purchased a box with has several diskettes, installed the program and entered in the license key which was written on the packaging, and you owned that license forever.

As time went on, the diskettes were replaced with CD’s and even more recently, the developers distributed the program by allowing customers to download the program directly from the Internet.

Recently, the new shift is to use software online. This means there is no software to download or software updates to worry about. Instead you have to worry about loosing Internet connectivity! With regard to price, the online programs are generally smaller monthly fees as opposed to one lump sum for the downloaded programs.

Microsoft is now offering their Office suite with an online version as well. The online version is called Office Web Apps which is part of Office 365. They are offering several different packages of their suite, and some include desktop versions too! What’s the difference between them?

Office 365

For your home, there are two options.

For your business, there are six options.

For the home…

Both plans offer:

– Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, One Note, Access and Publisher

– Ability to access it on 5 computers and 5 mobile devices

The differences between the two plans are:

– Option #1 is $99.99 per year

– Option #2 is $9.99 per month