Today, Microsoft announced the Microsoft 365 Personal and Family Subscriptions, the first consumer offerings from Microsoft 365. It's about the changes to Office 365 subscriptions for small and medium-sized businesses—and to Office 365 ProPlus. Going forward, all of these products will use the Microsoft 365 brand.
This is a natural evolution. Microsoft 365 began in 2017 as a licensing bundle for enterprise customers—a combination of Windows, Office, and Enterprise Mobility and Security (EMS). It has come a long way since then. Today, we call it “the world’s productivity cloud” and it represents Microsoft vision for the future of Microsoft productivity tools—an integrated set of apps and services that puts artificial intelligence (AI) and other cutting-edge innovations to work for you. And for small and medium-sized businesses, that includes new capabilities in Microsoft Teams to help you host rich meetings and events online; cloud file storage and sharing capabilities so you can collaborate from anywhere; and security and identity solutions to safeguard your business. At a moment when businesses are facing extraordinary health and economic challenges, Microsoft is pleased to bring consumer and small and medium-sized business customers into this growing Microsoft 365 family.
New product names
The new product names go into effect on April 21, 2020. This is a change to the product name only, and there are no pricing or feature changes at this time.
Office 365 Business Essentials will become Microsoft 365 Business Basic.
Office 365 Business Premium will become Microsoft 365 Business Standard.
Microsoft 365 Business will become Microsoft 365 Business Premium.
Office 365 Business and Office 365 ProPlus will both become Microsoft 365 Apps. Where necessary Microsoft will use the “for business” and “for enterprise” labels to distinguish between the two.
Note that the changes to these products will all happen automatically.
Today, Microsoft simply announcing name changes. But these changes represent Microsoft ambition to continue to drive innovation in Microsoft 365 that goes well beyond what customers traditionally think of as Office. The Office you know and love will still be there, but Microsoft is excited about the new apps and services added to their subscriptions over the last few years and about the new innovations Microsoft be adding in the coming months. For questions, please refer the FAQs below and then head to the What is Microsoft 365 page for more details.
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