In 2011, Microsoft introduced Office 365 as a subscription service that nets you all the benefits of Microsoft Office for a monthly or annual fee. The only problem with Microsoft’s plan was that Office 365 was designed around families so you were paying for more than one license even if you were the only one using it. Microsoft has finally realized that people without families want to use Office as well and have introduced a new subscription tier just for them.
Microsoft announced this morning that Office 365 Personal is for the Office aficionados that lead lonely lives. No more will have you to pay for multiple licenses as an affordable $6.99/month fee will hook you up with a single Office 365 license that can be installed on one computer and one tablet. If you don’t like the idea of paying a monthly fee, you can also pony up the annual fee of $69.99 and be done with it.
Despite this new focus on the individual, Office 365 Home Premium will stick around. It will get a name change though. The software will now be called Office 365 Home once Personal launches to better illustrate what each one is for. Personal is for single use whereas Home is for those who want to install Office on multiple computers. The price will remain the same.
Outside of the price, Microsoft says that Office 365 Personal and Home will both offer the same benefits. Both subscriptions will net you an hour of Skype calling per month, 20GB of additional OneDrive storage and invisible updates to Office.
There’s no date yet for when Office 365 Personal will be made available, but it should be soon.
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