Microsoft Office 365 is the Redmond giant’s answer to the all-conquering Google and an attempt to capitalise on the growing acceptance of the cloud and software as a service. Does it work? Yes it does.
Rather than having to spend capital up front on Office licences, Microsoft now offers monthly rentals of the Office suite. It comes in several flavours – from Home Premium and Small Business Premium to ProPlus and Enterprise – each with a different feature set and cost.
Office 365 Home Premium includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, and Publisher. It also has Skype and 20Gb of storage with SkyDrive. Office 365 Small Business Premium includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, Publisher and Lync. The small business package comes with Lync Online, Sharepoint Online and Exchange Online, complete with 25GB of cloud storage.
Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus for small to medium-sized businesses gets the ProPlus versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, Publisher and Lync plus InfoPath. ProPlus also includes Lync Online, Sharepoint Online and Exchange Online with 25Gb of cloud storage.
Office 365 Enterprise offers the full gamut of Office products, including Exchange, Lync, Sharepoint and a range of data loss prevention and compliance tools thrown in. Those using Enterprise will also benefit from Project Online when it’s launched later this year.
Each licence will allow up to five installs on PC and Mac and your Office.com login will tell you exactly how many you have left when you download it.
Anyone who has used recent Office suites will be familiar with the Office 365 layout. It’s all very tidy – the interface is simple, uncluttered and logical.
There are no glaring usability problems that I could find and after a little bit of orientation, I could begin producing documents quickly enough.
The tile-style interface is flat and blocky but works well. If you have seen or used Windows 8, you will be instantly familiar with how it looks. While I would have liked to see the end of the ribbon, this new iteration is better than previous versions. There are more tabs, contents are easier to manage and the ribbon experience has been enhanced – that alone is worth the upgrade.
A significant advantage of Microsoft Office 365 is Office On Demand. This installs a full copy of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, or Publisher on any Windows 7 or 8 machine. You can create and edit documents from your SkyDrive and then delete the temporary install once you’re finished. It’s a neat application which is ideal for travelling workers or those who work on client sites. It’s fast too, which helps.
You can still do just about anything with Microsoft Office 365. You even get the option to work with PDF files, which is a significant benefit to businesses. You can import them, modify them and save them, although strangely enough, it won’t let you replace the original file. You have to call it something else, delete the original then rename the edited file. Odd, but not a show-stopper. It will be ideal for those who just don’t get on with Adobe Acrobat or who don’t want to pay for the licence.
Word is faster, spell-check doesn’t get in the way, the cursor doesn’t flash or jump around, the new ribbon is easier to use and the new design tab makes working with formatting much simpler than before.
Excel has been given some love too, with a Quick Analysis Lens that lets you apply formatting or formulas to blocks. Click the lightning rod that appears when you highlight a block and you can quickly choose the most popular options. Simple but effective.
Outlook remains much the same, as it was overhauled in Office 2010. However, it is faster and simpler to use thanks to inline replies. These allow you to reply to a mail string without having to open it up, saving time and screen real estate.
Being a Microsoft product, it isn’t all good news, but not for the reasons you might think. Not all businesses are willing to accept software as a service or cloud storage. For these, Microsoft Office 365 isn’t the way forward, yet. While storage is as secure as it can be, it could still be better.
Cloud computing is also dependent on a reliable internet connection to make the most of it. Not everyone has this luxury and it does present problems for businesses in developing countries.
The main disappointment as far as I can see is how Microsoft Office 365 works on touchscreens. Even with the touch-centric Windows 8 styling, it just doesn’t feel as composed or as fluid as it does on a desktop. If you want to explore menus and dialog boxes on a tablet or touchscreen device, you had better have small fingers – otherwise you’re in for a struggle.
Overall, Microsoft Office 365 is a winner. The interface and user experience are much improved, zero day updates and bug fixes are most welcome and the flexibility of Office on Demand is a welcome one.
As long as you’re not using it on tablets, the best productivity suite in the world is still the best productivity suite in the world.
Jesmond Darmanin is a technology enthusiast who has his own blog at www.itnewsblog.com.