Microsoft Office 365 Home Update: More Users And More Sign-ins
by Brett Howse on September 3, 2018 9:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Software
- Microsoft
- Office
- Office 365
For those that are subscribed to Office 365 Home, Microsoft has announced that they are updating the contract to allow more users to access the subscription, and they’re updating the installation limits as well.
When Office 365 Home was first announced, it was $99/year and gave access to Office applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more, plus additional OneDrive storage for each user. Although the amount of OneDrive space has changed, it’s currently 1 TB of OneDrive per person on the subscription. So in theory, you could have up to 5 TB of file stored in the cloud as well as the Office applications for up to five people.
Office was limited to 10 device installs total, and you could manage which devices were activated through the Office.com portal, but this is changing as well. Five of the devices could be PCs and the rest could be tablets or phones.
| Office 365 Home Users | |||||
| Office 365 Personal | Office 365 Home (Previous) | Office 365 Home (New) | |||
| Office 365 Users | 1 | 5 | 6 | ||
| Office Apps | Word Excel PowerPoint OneNote Outlook Publisher Access |
||||
| Office Installs | 1 PC/Mac, 1 tablet, and 1 phone | 5 PCs/Macs, 5 tablets and 5 phones | Unlimited devices, 5 signed in to Office per user | ||
| OneDrive | 1 TB x 1 user | 1 TB x 5 users | 1 TB x 6 users | ||
| Skype minutes | 60 x 1 user | 60 x 5 users | 60 x 6 users | ||
| Microsoft Support (Phone/Chat) | Included | ||||
| Price (USD) | $69.99/year $6.99/month |
$99.99/year $9.99/month |
$99.99/year $9.99/month |
||
With the new terms, Office 365 Home is now going to cover six people instead of five, and the 1 TB of OneDrive of course extends to that sixth person, increasing the total cloud storage to 6 TB. The device limit has changed as well, with no limits to the number of devices Office is installed on, but each person will only be able to be signed into Office on five devices at a time. This is a big jump though from 10 total for all 5 people.
These new changes come with no additional cost. Office 365 Home still costs $99/year, or $9.99 per month.
Source: Microsoft
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trparky - Monday, September 3, 2018 - link
Good, this makes Office 365 for home users even more of an attractive offer.Flunk - Monday, September 3, 2018 - link
$69.99/year sounds pretty high for home use. Most people don't even need office at home, OpenOffice, LibreOffice or Google Docs is good enough for most uses. The bundled extras are OK, but can be had for significantly less elsewhere.I mean $69.99, is about what I paid for a perpetual license of Office 2013 Home I bought 5 years ago, but you're paying yearly. How much do you have to use Office to make this worthwhile? And remember, this is for non-commercial use. You can't even use it for your home business.
danielfranklin - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Thats why the "home" or family plan is so attractive.When you add the cloud storage and Skype minutes to it, its quite a deal for a household.
You also get Outlook and Publisher which doesnt come with the home perpetual licenses.
Arnulf - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
How is this "attractive"? Many of us have absolutely zero use for applications like Publisher and Outlook or the bundled Skype minutes.I for one am glad FOSS alternatives provide literally everything I ever need (word processing with export to PDF/A, a random spreadsheet or presentation here and there, browsing and IMAP/POP3 email) and it has been this way for many years now. I've been using OOo before the LibreOffice fork (am on LibreOffice now) and Firefox/Thunderbird as Netscape Navigator replacement - all for $0.00 per year.
CSMR - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
IMAP/POP email has been obsolete for 15 years and comes nowhere near activesync in functionality.sadsteve - Wednesday, September 5, 2018 - link
"IMAP/POP email has been obsolete for 15 years and comes nowhere near activesync in functionality."I guess I'll need to inform all my email providers. They seem to support both. And for home use, either one seems completely adequate.
serendip - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
The problem is that FOSS alternatives like LibreOffice don't play well on Windows tablets because the icons and UI are tiny. I end up making presentations in Libreoffice and exporting pptx files to view in the PowerPoint mobile app which has proper touch support. The Office mobile apps for Windows have a weird bug that allow you to edit and create files even without an Office 365 subscription, simply by signing in and viewing the subscription page. The edit functionality is enabled for a few days before you have to log in again.baka_toroi - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Libreoffice is shit and you suggesting it as an alternative to MS Office is proof that you don't have any idea of what you're talking about.Thunderbird has been abandoned years ago. What the fuck is wrong with you?
PeachNCream - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Thunderbird's last stable release was on August 6, 2018. That was 24 days ago. You should try research before calling someone else out as lacking in knowledge. ;)lothar98 - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
I think it’s attractive as long as corporations stay tightly linked to office. No matter how tech literate I may be, I have zero desire to come home and learn a new suite when I have only a few things to do.If I take this a step further the same issues apply to schools. It provides no value to put a different suite in front of my son than what’s being taught at school.