Microsoft had long been rumored to be working on a Microsoft 365 consumer subscription, until it finally made the announcement at the end of March. The two plans are Microsoft 365 Personal and Microsoft 365 Family, and they're the successors to Office 365 Personal and Office 365 Home, respectively.
The change in branding begins today, and it will be rolling out to users in the coming months. As for what actual new features you'll get, there's not much right now. There are two new products coming with Microsoft 365: Teams for consumers, and Microsoft Family Safety. Neither of them are ready yet, and they'll be available in the coming months.
The Teams experience that you'll be getting is similar to what businesses are already using; however, it will have more of an emphasis on communicating with family and friends, rather than co-workers. For example, you can assign tasks to other people in your household, there's a files section to find things that you've shared with your friends, and so on.
Family Safety is a mobile app for iOS and Android that lets you keep track of your family. You can see what your kids are using their phone for, and keep track of their location. Microsoft acknowledged the importance of privacy, of course, and the kids will be able to turn off the tracking. Note that some features will be exclusive to Android.
Microsoft touted some new Office features, as you'd expect. There's a new Money feature in Excel that lets you manage your finances, and the Microsoft Editor is coming to various Office apps, and that will help you to be a better writer. Naturally, you'll need to be a Microsoft 365 customer to use these features.
Office 365 becomes Microsoft 365 today, and if you're a customer, you'll start seeing changes in the coming months. This change is also coming to a variety of business Office 365 plans, but strangely enough, not all of them.
14 Comments - Add comment