Microsoft have announced the availability of Office 365 Home Premium today and it introduces a number of new things to Office. The biggest changes however aren’t in the product, but rather how you’ll buy Office in the future. There’s a new annual subscription service that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access and Publisher. One of the best new changes is the ability to install Office 2013 apps on up to five devices, including Windows tablets, PCs and Macs.
There’s certainly a trend in personal computing to want our software to go wherever we go, with the ability to transition seamlessly between multiple devices. Office 365 combined with SkyDrive is Microsoft’s solution to the problem.
There is a new, cleaner interface and some great new templates, but overall, the new Office is a refinement of Office 2010. There are some bundled advantages of taking out that credit card and buying into the subscription model.
- An additional 20 GB of SkyDrive cloud storage, nearly three times the amount available with a free SkyDrive account
- 60 free Skype world calling minutes per month to call mobile phones, landlines or PCs around the world
- Future upgrades, so you always use the latest time-saving technology
An annual subscription of Office 365 Home Premium is available for $119.00 AUD the equivalent of $9.92 AUD per month. The traditional packaged Office suites – Office Home and Student 2013, Office Home and Business 2013, and Office Professional 2013 will be available for purchase at retail for RRP $169, $299 and $599 respectively.
So what do you think about subscriptions services? We’re already paying for music and entertainment monthly, will software be another regular on your budget?
