Everyone knows that Microsoft is the undisputed software giant when it comes to personal computing. Since the early days of personal computing, the multibillion-dollar corporation founded by Bill Gates has dominated the software scene with its MS/DOS and Windows operating systems, as well as a host of popular applications that have been making businesses work for decades.

What is Office 365?

The wildly popular Microsoft Office Suite, which includes such applications as Word, Excel and PowerPoint, has been the preferred software for the majority of companies worldwide. Until 2011, MS Office was only available through a download to a computer’s hard drive, first via a disk and then by a digital download in later iterations. However, Office 365 is a game-changer in that it offers cloud-based computing, and all the perks that come with it. Users can now access their MS Office documents with a simple login to any computer connected to the Internet, which allows for greater accessibility and flexibility for customers around the globe.
If you have been using Office applications since their 1995 debut, you don’t need to be convinced of their usefulness and superiority to similar applications by competing software companies. After all, MS Office is by far the dominant business application suite that most companies use. However, you may be on the fence about the cloud-based Office 365. Here are some reasons why you could use Office 365, and how it can change your computing life forever once you give it a try.

SkyDrive- We’ve all been here: you’re a paragraph away from finishing an epic Excel spreadsheet, or a killer PowerPoint sales presentation for an important prospective client, when suddenly your computer crashes. If you didn’t happen to hit ‘Save’ the second before the catastrophe occurred, you’re in for a rude awakening when you reboot and see what the application’s AutoSave feature managed to recover for you. Odds are, the bulk of your important work will be gone for good, forcing you to start almost all the way over again. With SkyDrive, Office 365’s official storage cloud, you can kiss those problems goodbye! Not only do your docs constantly back up to the cloud as you work, but you can also enable a MS SkyDrive folder to auto-save duplicates to your hard drive for extra assurance that you never lose another file again.

Pricing- Once upon a time, every time a new version of Office came out, the user would have to shell out upwards of $100, depending on whether it was the Home, Student or Business version, in order to obtain the necessary installation disk for the upgrade. These days, though, Microsoft understands that its customers want flexibility when it comes to pricing. Along with Office 365, Microsoft unveiled a new subscription-based model for payment. For just $99 a year, an entire household can install Office 365 on up to five devices, which can be particularly convenient for households with a number of computer users. Another option is the “perpetual license,” in which the software is licensed to only one computer, but that license is good for life and doesn’t expire at the end of the year. Monthly plans are now even available, with a $9.99 monthly service charge that can be canceled at any time.

OS Flexibility- Got a Mac? You used to be out of luck if you wanted to use Microsoft Office Suite on your Apple computer. Not anymore- these days, you can download MS Office to machines running Mac OS X or higher. One caveat- when you install the software on a Mac, you’ll actually be getting Office 2011 rather than Office 365, but it is the full version, and the best option Apple users have ever had for Office software.

Apps are Included- Ever purchase a version of MS Office Suite, only to find out that certain apps, such as Access, were not included? The Home Premium version of Office 365 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, OneNote, and Access- in other words, every single application under the Office umbrella, making Office 365 the first version of MS Office in history that allowed access to all programs with a Home license.

Contact our Office 365 Experts at Baseline IS Today!

Office 365 is a bigger, better version of the MS Office Suite you’ve known and loved for years. Its cloud-based capabilities open up a whole new world of connectivity and storage options that were previously unavailable, but nothing of the original Office quality has been sacrificed. Ask our experts at Baseline IS if you require Office 365 support, or if you have more questions about whether Office 365 is right for your small business.