Microsoft Office is a great product, and one that most of us have used at some stage. But with the coming of Office 365, there are now multiple ways to have Office on your computer. The best way to begin understanding those choices is to list them like this:
Office 365 is a subscription service – a “pay as you go” type situation. It’s available month to month, year to year and can be cancelled at any time. The benefits? You are always upgraded to the most up-to-date version of Office and you can mix & match those licenses according to the needs of your staff.
If you have someone that just checks email once a day and never uses word or excel, Office 365 has a license to cover that at the price you would expect. Or perhaps you need the full kit and caboodle – there a license and a price for that and for every situation in between. There are Office 365 plans for home and personal use, as well as for small and mid-sized businesses, large enterprises, schools, and non-profits.
Office 2019 is sold as a one-time purchase, which means you pay a single, up-front cost to get Office apps for one computer. One-time purchases are available for both PCs and Macs however, there are no upgrade options which means if you plan to upgrade to the next major release, you'll have to buy it at full price. Unfortunately, that means no license changes, what you pay for is what you get.
When we as advisors look at what each business needs, we feel that Office 365 is a better fit for business, as you have the power to change things as you need to and this can quickly and easily result in IT cost savings for your business.
At the end of the day, IT should serve business. Your business. Not the other way around. We’ll be talking about that in our posts, so read on, or contact us for more info