Yesterday, Microsoft formally launched the consumer version of its Office 2013 suite, which it first revealed last July. As usual with a new version of Office, there are little tweaks all over the place, many of which have to do with making the software more webby (you can easily save documents to SkyDrive online storage, so they're available from any computer, phone or tablet) and touch-friendly (the interface has been slightly rejiggered to work better with touchscreen PCs, such as many Windows 8 machines).
How you manage your subscription (and in what ways you can manage it) depends on whether the subscription is prepaid or billed recurrently. For more, see the full article How to change your Microsoft subscription payment method and options.
But one of the biggest new twists in Office 2013 involves how you might end up paying for it. Microsoft is now offering a consumer version of its Office 365 service, which turns the suite from a shrinkwrapped product you pay for in one lump sum into a subscription service. And as you'll see if you visit Office.com, it's emphasizing this new Office-as-a-service over the conventional versions. (They remain available, although Microsoft has done away with previous versions that entitled you to install the suite on more than one computer.) It wants subscription Office to be the default Office.
- Microsoft 365 includes everything you love about Office 365 and more, at the same price. We've added value to the Office 365 subscription to make it Microsoft 365. With Microsoft 365, you receive additional benefits including Microsoft Editor, Money in Excel, and premium creative content in Office, plus more to come.
- Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) gives you constant updates but requires a monthly or annual subscription fee. Office 2019 is a fixed package of software, but you only have to pay for it once.
Software companies certainly like the idea of turning their wares into services with ongoing fees: It's a way of ensuring that customers don't buy something once and then hold onto it, spurning upgrades indefinitely. (There are people who paid for Windows XP back in 2001 and have never given Microsoft another dime.)
But do you want to subscribe to Office? There's no one-size-fits-all answer to that question, but I'm going to try to point you in the right direction.
One question I'm not going to answer in this piece. though it deserves further examination: Do you need Office at all, given that the consumer versions of Google's equivalent web-based apps are free? (Briefly, Google's services are a workable alternative in a lot of cases, but Office is still a vastly richer, more capable collection of productivity software.) Logic pro x login.
With the new consumer version of Office 365, Microsoft has resisted its usual instinctive urge to offer a product in a multiplicity of versions that vary in subtle ways. Despite its name — Office 365 Home Premium — there's just one version of Office 365 for home users. It costs either $99.99 a year or $9.99 a month, which covers up to five computers in a household. They can include Windows PCs and/or Macs; Microsoft isn't releasing a new OS X version of Office just now, but Office 2011, the current Mac version, is part of the package.
Your money gets you…well, pretty much everything in Office you're likely to want to use for personal stuff:
- All the major Office apps (which, for Windows, include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access, Publisher) in downloadable form, with access to upgrades as they become available;
- 20GB of additional SkyDrive space, beyond the 7GB Microsoft offers for free;
- Office on Demand, a service that lets you stream full-blown Office to Windows 7 and Windows 8 PCs that don't have the suite installed;
- An hour of Skype calls (to landlines) each month.
If you're trying to do the math on the deal, start by considering how many computers you plan to use Office with:
- For one PC, Office 365 is $100 per year
- Two PCs: $50 per PC per year
- Three PCs: $33 per PC year
- Four PCs: $25 per PC per year
- Five PCs: $20 per PC year
Then think about your particular situation:
'I have a bunch of computers and they all need Office.'
Office 365 delivers impressive bang for the buck. Even if you bought Office Home & Student — a basic version that includes fewer apps than Office 365 — paying for five copies of the the suite would cost you $700. You could use Office 365 on those five machines through 2019 for that price, and you'd be entitled to all the upgrades that came along. And if you bought five shrinkwrapped copies of Office Professional — the version most comparable to Office 365 Home Premium — you'd owe Microsoft $2,000, which is enough to pay for twenty years' worth of Office 365. Www cricut com cds.
'I want as much Office as possible.'
Until now, Microsoft has catered to price-conscious home users with stripped-down versions of Office. But Office 365 has Outlook, Publisher and Access. And depending on the number of PCs you have and your propensity to upgrade, it might still cost you less over time than a more basic shrinkwrapped edition.
'I want the latest features as fast as possible.'
The core of Office 365 is still a suite of great big conventional PC apps that require updating, not web-based services that always sport the newest features. But Microsoft says it's going to release new stuff for Office 365 on an ongoing basis, giving subscribers additional capabilities without making them wait three years or so for a conventional upgrade.
'I'm upgrade-adverse.'
If you plan to buy Office and then run it into the ground, Office 365 and its free upgrades lose much of their appeal. Note, though, that you aren't required to install new versions as they come along: You could stick with the old ones until you were ready to make the leap.
'You know, I basically need Word and Excel for one computer.'
A $139.99 copy of Office Home & Student will probably do you fine.
'I'm worried what will happen to my stuff if I stop subscribing.'
ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley has written a good post on this topic. It's true that you should only subscribe to Office 365 Home Premium if you're comfortable with the idea of paying Microsoft $100 a year for productivity software indefinitely. But if you cancel your subscription, you won't lose the documents you created — just access to the full-blown Office apps. You'll still be able to open your files in a boxed copy of Office, Microsoft's Office Web Apps or an Office-compatible competitor such as Google Docs.
The bottom line: Depending on how many PCs you've got and how many Office apps you need, Office 365 Home Premium is anywhere from a respectable deal to an aggressively excellent one. If you're happy with whatever version of Office you're using now — or happy using something that isn't Office — there's no need to feel guilty if you don't feel like considering Microsoft's latest upgrade right now. But I think a lot of people who are ready to move to Office 2013 are going to decide that Microsoft has made the Office 365 proposition irresistible.
I want to use Microsoft Access online, is Microsoft 365 the best way of doing this?
Microsoft offers small and medium business versions of Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Office 365), namely Microsoft 365 Apps for Business and Microsoft 365 Business Standard that requires a monthly subscription of (at the time of writing) £7.90 or £9.40 respectively. This includes access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, One Note, Publisher, Outlook and Access.
Microsoft 365 isn't just a version of Microsoft Office, it is in fact a combination of a different way of licencing Office plus some additional cloud-based services including the ability to you save your Office documents 'in the cloud'; as well as running 'Online' web browser based versions of some Office applications.
There are a number of different 'Plans' for Microsoft 365. The cheapest is the 'Business Basic' plan, which gives you email, OneDrive, Teams, and a few other cloud services, but only 'online' versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. As plans increase in price, more features are added.
One of the most popular with small businesses is the Microsoft 365 Business Standard plan which provides desktop installed versions of Office applications plus email. With Business Standard you can install Office on up to 5 devices, which includes Mac, PCs, Tablets and phones.
What Plan do I need to have Microsoft Access Online with Microsoft 365
Access is now included in all the plans that allow for installed versions of Office applications, including: Microsoft 365 Business Standard, Business Premium, Apps for Business, Apps for Enterprise as well as Office 365 E3 and E5. The elder scrolls 5 skyrim release date. However, there is only a PC version of Access. Unlike Word, Excel etc. There is no version of Access that works on a Mac, tablet, or smartphone. Also, you can't use Microsoft Access online in the way that they do for Word and Excel. So, for the question: Is Access part of Microsoft 365? The answer is yes, but only from a licencing perspective.
Can I use Microsoft Access Online 'In the Cloud'?
The general idea of using any application in the cloud stems from the business requirement to be able to share data over the Internet and do away with the need for local IT infrastructure. Microsoft have experimented with using Microsoft 365 as a way of sharing Access databases including using SharePoint as well as Access WebApps which is the closest thing to Microsoft Access online. However, both of these methods have been retired, probably because the idea of stretching an application like Access from its data source (tables) over the Internet is unlikely to perform well with current internet speeds.
How can I share an Access database online using the internet
People often ask: 'Is Access part of Microsoft 365?' because of a need to share their database with colleagues, either on their site or in other locations, hoping that the cloud services available with Microsoft 365 and Office 365 will solve that problem; unfortunately, Microsoft 365 isn't going to help here.
One method of sharing an online Microsoft Access database is to use a Hosted Remote Desktop service. Remote Desktop servers are designed to allow multiple users to run the same application at once. That application could be an Access database. Where the remote desktop servers are 'Hosted', the hosting provider will put in additional services that enable users to securely connect to the remote desktop over the Internet.
Where a Microsoft Access Online database is split into Front-end and Back-end, both these parts sit on the remote desktop server. No data has to travel up and down the Internet, only keyboard and mouse clicks, so performance can be equal to running Access on your own site or network.
Can I use a Microsoft 365 licence on a remote desktop server?
The answer is Yes, but…
…in order to use Microsoft 365 on a remote desktop server you need a feature called Shared Computer Activation (SCA). A remote desktop server is in effect a shared computer. SCA is only available in certain plans i.e. Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise, and Office 365 E3 or E5. In addition, a hosted remote desktop provider has to be certified to host Microsoft 365 Office apps. More information on this can be found in our article SCA Shared Computer Activation how to activate Microsoft 365 on hosted remote desktop server . However, remote desktop hosting providers will be able to rent different Access or Office licences using Service Provider Licence Agreements. Your Office Anywhere can also advise you on how you can use the Access Runtime licence to reduce your licence costs.
How do I know if a hosted remote desktop service will work for my application?
Most hosted remote desktop providers will allow you to 'try before you buy' either with a demo account for your online Microsoft Access or providing a test server for your specific application.
Your Office Anywhere are specialists in hosting bespoke Microsoft Access Online databases on their remote desktop service. If you need more information please call 01282 500 318 and one of our technical sales consultants will answer your questions about using this type of service. Please visit the Contact page to take the next step.
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