Any Advantage to an Office 365 Subscription?

[jaybar]

Hi

We have two iPads (9.7 and 12.9) and a new iMac 2017 and iPhones. We have 200 GB of shared (family) iCloud storage.
We may replace the 9.7 Air2 with a IPad Pro if Apple issues a new iPad in 2018.

We have two accounts on the iMac. The iMac has an SSD Drive

Currently we are running Office 2016 stand alone.

Is there a clear advantage to having an Office 365 subscription, rather than the stand alone version?

I am not sure how often we would access our Word documents on our iPads.

Thanks

Jay

 

[Jeffois]

Even if you want to access the documents on your iPads, you can definitely save your docs to your iCloud storage, and access them that way. Pages and Numbers can open Office formatted files. Saving to that format from the Apple apps is more of a pain in the neck. But if you're not doing it often, it might work for you. There's some ability to use the Office apps on the iPad, with restrictions based on screen size:
https://www.computerworld.com/artic...-free-ride-on-apples-new-105-in-ipad-pro.html


The only reason I use 365 is that I get it for free through work. Otherwise, I'd likely go standalone. But as with anything like this, YMMV...

 

[JCCL]

I go the other way, I find that Office 365 phone is a far better deal than iCloud. I guess the benefits would be:
- Up to 5 PC/ Mac installs
- You always get the latest version, even stuff that is not yet available in the standalone is available in the 365 version.
- 1 TB One Drive for for each user. and if you don't actually have 5 users to share with, you can create a new account, grant that account access to your subscriptions, and share a folder with your main account to full access and voila, you have two 2 TBs. In total, you get 5 TB for your family, really dwarfing those 200 GB that iCloud grants.
- OneDrive also plays really well with iOS devices.

Those are the main benefits I can think of

 

[jaybar]

We needed iCloud 200GB b/c of family sharing issue.

 

[CTHarrryH]

Rumor has it that the stand alone version won't be updated to new versions and so if you want office 2019 it will have to be the 365 version. That will also help empty your wallet faster

 

[mj_]

No idea where these rumors originated but they are incorrect. Microsoft has already officially announced that Office 2019 will be available as standalone product in addition to the Office 365 subscription model. If you want to upgrade from Office 2016 to Office 2019 you will obviously have to purchase a new license though.

@jaybar, there are several advantages to both, Office 2016 standalone as well as Office 365.

Office 2016 standalone:

• one-time purchase you can use as long as you want (or as long as Microsoft keeps its activation servers up and running, see Office 2011).
• Much cheaper in the long run if you don't suffer from featuritis and don't NEED the latest and greatest the same day it was released. The break-even between purchase and subscription is somewhere between 3-5 years.
• Perpetual license you can resell if you end up not needing it anymore.
• Even after breaking even you wills till have full access to your documents whereas with Office 365 you are limited to read-only access once you stop paying.

Office 365:

• Much lower initial investment.
• Includes all feature updates within one series. In other words: Office 2016 obtained through an Office 365 subscription has been upgraded since release and received new features that Office 2016 standalone has not received.
• Includes upgrades to future releases - once Office 2019 is released there is no additional payment required to upgrade.
• Depending on subscription up to 5 installations on 5 Macs/PCs, Office 2016 standalone is always either Win or Mac and only up to two of your own (!) computers.
• 1TB OneDrive storage - even if you don't need Cloud storage it's perfect as additional backup tier for off-site backups.
• Free minutes for international phone calls on Skype

Those are, in short, the advantages. As much as I personally hate and loathe (for lack of a stronger word) software subscription models there are two that are definitely worth their money: Office 365 and the Adobe Photography Plan, both at around $10 per month each. I did, however, opt for an Office 2016 standalone license instead of Office 365 and would have also purchased Photoshop and Lightroom if Adobe was still selling standalone licenses thereof.

 

[sracer]

No idea where these rumors originated but they are incorrect. Microsoft has already officially announced that Office 2019 will be available as standalone product in addition to the Office 365 subscription model. If you want to upgrade from Office 2016 to Office 2019 you will obviously have to purchase a new license though.

@jaybar, there are several advantages to both, Office 2016 standalone as well as Office 365.

Office 2016 standalone:

• one-time purchase you can use as long as you want (or as long as Microsoft keeps its activation servers up and running, see Office 2011).
• Much cheaper in the long run if you don't suffer from featuritis and don't NEED the latest and greatest the same day it was released. The break-even between purchase and subscription is somewhere between 3-5 years.
• Perpetual license you can resell if you end up not needing it anymore.
• Even after breaking even you wills till have full access to your documents whereas with Office 365 you are limited to read-only access once you stop paying.

Office 365:

• Much lower initial investment.
• Includes all feature updates within one series. In other words: Office 2016 obtained through an Office 365 subscription has been upgraded since release and received new features that Office 2016 standalone has not received.
• Includes upgrades to future releases - once Office 2019 is released there is no additional payment required to upgrade.
• Depending on subscription up to 5 installations on 5 Macs/PCs, Office 2016 standalone is always either Win or Mac and only up to two of your own (!) computers.
• 1TB OneDrive storage - even if you don't need Cloud storage it's perfect as additional backup tier for off-site backups.
• Free minutes for international phone calls on Skype

Those are, in short, the advantages. As much as I personally hate and loathe (for lack of a stronger word) software subscription models there are two that are definitely worth their money: Office 365 and the Adobe Photography Plan, both at around $10 per month each. I did, however, opt for an Office 2016 standalone license instead of Office 365 and would have also purchased Photoshop and Lightroom if Adobe was still selling standalone licenses thereof.

Good breakdown of the pros and cons. Regarding the rumors, Microsoft has a history of not being as clear as they could be regarding MS Office and 0365 subscriptions. This includes communicating their future plans for Office and O365. Most rumors develop as a result of parsing out Microsoft's often obtuse wording of things.

 

[mj_]

I disagree. Microsoft announced Office 2019 on September 26, 2017 and made very clear right away (aka the same day) that in addition to the Office 365 subscription model it will be available as conventional standalone one-time payment license as well.

What they have also made very clear: this does not mean that they won't change their business model for Office for the next iteration after that. Office 2022 might thus be available through subscription only as they have deliberately left that question unanswered.

 

[sracer]

I disagree. Microsoft announced Office 2019 on September 26, 2017 and made very clear right away (aka the same day) that in addition to the Office 365 subscription model it will be available as conventional standalone one-time payment license as well.

What they have also made very clear: this does not mean that they won't change their business model for Office for the next iteration after that. Office 2022 might thus be available through subscription only as they have deliberately left that question unanswered.

It sounds like you have closely followed Microsoft's various press releases, blog articles, interviews, and statements made at various conferences. I have only caught enough to draw the conclusion that Microsoft has not been consistent. So folks are free to go with what you're saying, I'll stick to what I've seen and experienced.

 

[CTHarrryH]

The articles that I have read said that office 2019 will exist as a stand alone on Windows but not on the Mac. We will see what they actually announce vs. any and all rumors.

 

[mj_]

I have no idea where you get your information from and what articles or blogs you read, but Microsoft has been very clear and straightforward on the subject of Office 2019 stand-alone availability from day one. Just because some random people on the internet love to speculate and made a business out of it doesn't mean it holds even the tiniest shred of truth.

Let me quote from Microsoft's official Office 2019 FAQ:

What is the difference between Office 2019 (perpetual) and Office 365 (subscription)?

Office 2019 (for both Windows and Mac) is a one-time purchase and does not receive feature updates after purchase. Office 2019 includes a meaningful subset of features found in Office 365, but it is not part of Office 365. Office 2019 will receive quality and security patch updates as required.

Office 365 is a user-based subscription service powered by the Microsoft cloud. It provides access to a suite of services beyond what the perpetual version provides, and receives feature updates on an ongoing basis. Essentially it includes the most collaborative, secure, and up-to-date features.

To me, that sounds very consistent and absolutely clear. I don't see any wiggle room in that statement, do you?

I would love to see an official statement claiming otherwise.

 

[campyguy]

I'm going to pile on with @mj_, adding that Office 2019 for Mac (the perpetual license) is and has been in beta testing for weeks for commercial customers, available a few weeks after the Win10 beta suite - I posted about this weeks ago, and two of my employees are testing the Mac suite.

I've also posted that MS moved to a unified code base for all of the OS platforms - mobile, desktop, and web - starting in February. MS has been pushing updates one of more times each week for both Windows and macOS, with 3 coming just this week on their Fast Ring (which I subscribe to on the macOS platform).

Two more adds to O365 for the OP. First, it's on sale someplace pretty much all of the time. I buy a "Home" license for my personal use, and I've never paid more than $60 for the Home 5-install option - my first two years were free and I stacked a 3rd year for $50 at an MS Store, and it's around $80-85 at Costco, Adorama, and B&H Photo right now. The second bit is the associated Outlook.com account(s) gets its email both ad-free and boosted to a 50GB allocation.

With a "Home" subscription, I set up a few dummy email accounts besides my main account - one for "crap", another for "Craigslist", another for "list bots". Each of those accounts gets a 1TB OneDrive allocation. I use Arq Backup to back up to each of those accounts for my personal stuff (iterative encrypted Disk Images). Not a bad deal for my needs...

 

[KrisAK]

Do the two versions -- 365 and standalone -- share the same UI?

Asking because when 365 rolled out, I was still on a PC, and the interface for 365 was substantially inferior to the standalone version. (It was very flat, and discriminability between visual elements was poor.)

 

[jaybar]

I only run it on the iMac I did not notice any difference, nor did my husband. I no longer have the stand alone version installed.

 

[mj_]

Of course they share the exact same interface. When you purchase Office 2016 standalone you get Office 2016. When you purchase Office 365 you get Office 2016. What you're thinking of is the difference between Office 2016 and 2011/2013 - the latter's user interface is not nearly as flat as the former's. Office 2016 is Office 2016 whether purchased as standalone license or through the Office 365 subscription model.

There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding Office 365 and I'm not sure what Microsoft could do better. Office 365 is nothing but a subscription model for the current version of Office, be that 2016, 2019, 2022, etc., with a few goodies added in for good measure, such as 1TB of OneDrive storage, 60 free Skype minutes, multi-platform capabilities (aka you can use Office on Mac and Windows whereas standalone you have to pick one platform and stick with it), and minor feature updates between major releases. Unlike the standalone license it gives you the right to upgrade to newer releases as soon as they become available. In other words: once Microsoft releases Office 2019 all Office 365 subscribers will have the right to upgrade whereas all Office 2016 standalone users will be stuck with Office 2016. That's when the user interface starts to diverge but that's not because of subscription vs. standalone but because of Office 2019 vs. Office 2016. If you opt to purchase an Office 2019 standalone license you will once again be running the exact same version of Office as Office 365 subscribers.

 

[BeatCrazy]

I used to by the standalone Office for Mac. My last version is 2011, and it's getting a bit weary.

I'm on a different path now, just trying to use office.com versions of the core applications. Since you can get the "mobile" versions of Office for free, that's good enough for my iOS devices (except my iPad Pro 10.5 is "too big"). But I've found the Office.com versions can do everything I've needed, so far. I can even create pivot tables in Excel.

You can even bump up your free 5GB of storage to 15GB, which should be plenty for most Word/Excel docs. If you plan on doing a lot of PowerPoint, you'll either needs to save to iCloud/elsewhere, or consider O365.