Microsoft to raise Office 2019 prices in push for Office 365 subscriptions

The price of Office 2019 licences is increasing by around 10% compared to Office 2016 licences, which will be the first increase since Office 2010 launched.

Nathaniel Mott, writing for TomsHardware.co.uk, says this is a clear statement from Microsoft that it wants its customers to move to the Office 365 subscription, for which the tech giant has not announced any price hikes.

An Office 2019 licence is more expensive than a yearly Office 365 subscription, but some users believe it will prove less expensive in the mid-term. If Microsoft continues to update Office, only users with a 365 subscription will receive major upgrades without paying more. As a result, in the long-term, Office 365 works out cheaper than purchasing an Office 2019 licence.

Office 365 Business Premium comes with added services as well as desktop versions of Office. These include Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Skype for Business, and Microsoft Teams. For many businesses, the cooperation and sharing options included in this plan make it an essential buy compared to purchasing an Office 2019 business licence.

Office 365 comes with many extra security features which include controls for who has access to business information, with administrators able to switch on automatic systems that make people change their passwords regularly.

As Microsoft introduces new features, these are automatically added to the office applications of an Office 365 subscription. As an example, new features added in November 2018 include:

• The ability to embed 3D animations in Word and PowerPoint documents
• The new Transform to Web feature that creates interactive web pages from documents. These can be used to publish training websites and Web newsletters
• Microsoft Translator built in to translate words, phrases and text selections into other languages
• PowerPoint has additional smooth animation transitions. Objects can move from one slide to another, and slideshows can be controlled with a digital pen or a Bluetooth button
• Support for LaTeX equations has been added
• New Excel functions include TEXTJOIN, CINCAT and IFS, along with more chart types
• New gestures have been added for digital pen users on the Microsoft Surface and other computers with touchscreens
• In Outlook, tasks can be linked to make it easier to see a list of project tasks. Timeline bars quickly visualise the progress of projects
• Website templates create sketches of websites to present ideas before the web design process happens
• A number of accessible features have been added, including audio cues and recommendations to make documents more accessible

As for SharePoint 2019, upgrades focus on three focus areas: user experience, content engagement and security. Key changes include:

• Syncing to cloud storage, including OneDrive, Box and DropBox has been improved
• The new Site Teams page offering a location to share news, display articles and broadcast messaged
• The search system in SharePoint 2019 updates search results as the search is typed, with results grouped by type
• Lists can be used for individuals and teams to share structured data

To learn more about the advantages of Office 365 solutions for business, and understand which package is right for you, talk to us at WM Reply