Office 365: Your burning questions, answered

Credit: striatic via Flickr

Microsoft this morning is rolling out its updated Office 365 suite for businesses and launching new pricing tiers.

There are a lot of changes in the way that Office 365 works, and in typical fashion Microsoft is using a very confusing naming plan for the various products.

So we put together a FAQ list to help you sort it all out...

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What’s the difference between the old Office 365 and the new?

The old Office 365 was only available to businesses. It included Microsoft-hosted versions of Exchange (email), SharePoint (collaboration), and Lync (real-time communications). Some editions also included a subscription-based version of the Office 2010 apps.

The new version has several big differences:

• Microsoft is now selling Office 365 in three tiers: for small businesses, medium sized business, and enterprises. It's the first time Office 365 has a product aimed at medium sized businesses -- which Microsoft defines as 10 to 250 employees.
• Office 365 is now also available to individual users in the Home Premium version. 
• Almost every edition of Office 365 includes a subscription-based version of the Office 2013 apps, which themselves have lots of new features. Two of the most interesting are tighter integration with SkyDrive online storage, and On Demand, which lets you sign in and use Office on computers that don't have it installed.
• Rather than charging on a per-seat basis, as it traditionally has with desktop versions of Office, Microsoft sells Office 365 on a per-user basis. For editions where the apps are included, each user is allowed five installs. That means that if your employer signs up for Office 365 with apps, you'll be allowed to download the Office suite on five PCs or Macs.

Sadly, there’s no naming difference between the old Office 365 and the new, making it confusing to research the new product. When looking for information on Microsoft’s sites, note the updated Office 365 logo. Generally, I’ve found that pages with the new, red square logo describe the new Office 365. Pages with the yellow and orange clover leaf logo refer to the old version of Office 365. However, this method of distinction isn’t totally foolproof as some information about the old version applies to the new.

What’s the difference between Office 365 and Office 2013?

The difference is in how you pay for it. Most times, when Microsoft refers to Office 2013, it’s talking about the one-time perpetual license, and when it refers to Office 365, it’s describing the subscription. However, when you download Office 365, the icons that appear on your computer for the various applications are called 2013, (e.g. Word 2013).

Should I buy my own subscription to Office 365 Home Premium, or wait for my workplace to get Office 365 and allow me to download a copy on my home PC?