Microsoft Office 365 naming update
On 21st April 2020, Microsoft will be updating the names of its Office 365 subscriptions for small and medium businesses (SMBs). There are no price or feature changes to your subscriptions.
- Office 365 Business subscriptions are becoming Microsoft 365 for business subscriptions. This includes Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium, and Microsoft 365 Business
- Standalone desktop client subscriptions are becoming Microsoft 365 Apps subscriptions. This includes Office 365 Business and Office 365 ProPlus.
Amshire will start to update your monthly invoices to reflect this name change. There are no price or feature changes for your subscription for you to worry about.
Overview of new product names
Office Business becomes
Office 365 Business or ProPlus becomes
Why are Microsoft making the change?
Microsoft are making the change to remove confusion around the Office 365 and Microsoft 365 products.
The existing naming convention no longer represents the placement for each subscription within the product family.
- Office 365 Essentials provides Cloud services for Email, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive. But it does not include Desktop Applications.
- Office 365 Business provides the Desktop Applications. But this does not provide any Cloud services.
- Office 365 Business Premium combined the Essentials and Business products together.
The confusion started when Microsoft released Microsoft 365 around 2 years ago. This product is based upon the Office 365 Business Premium subscription with Advanced Security features. These additional features include Mobile Device Management, Information Rights Management and Exchange Online Archiving.
By renaming the Office 365 and Microsoft 365 products it makes it clear where each sit within the product family.
Do you want more information?
If you want more information about any of the new Microsoft 365 subscriptions or features that you’ve not looked at then please get in contact with us.