The incredibly popular Microsoft products keep on evolving and they don’t seem to have any desire of stopping. These last few years, it has been really hard to keep up with everything that Microsoft has been up to, since they have been up to a lot. One of the products that evolved a lot if Microsoft Office. There have been so many changes, that even experts struggle to keep up.
Microsoft Office Package
Microsoft always had a few amazing products on the Office package, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint, but there are other that aren’t really used a lot, but still worth a lot if they are used properly. Recently, after the release of Windows 8, Microsoft got Office 2013 and Office 365 out there, and these have sparked a lot of confusion.
The thing about these two is that the name is incredibly similar and, on top of that, they pretty much look the same thing at first sight, since they do both include Word, Excel and PowerPoint, as well as some other apps that have different utilities included in them, but that aren’t as popular as these three.
Updates That Matter
We can see Office 2013 as the latest update of Office 2010, but Office 365 is a different thing that isn’t that hard to tell apart once we actually look at the true differences that exist between one and the other product. These are good for different purposes, and some people can see themselves with Office 2013 a lot better than they can see themselves with Office 365.
Increasing Productivity
Essentially, Office 2013 is a productivity tool. You have apps such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint that are going to help you make your work and get things done, something that has been with us for years and that will keep on being. With Office 2013, you are just going to get a few more updates and tricks to use when you compare it to Office 2010.
When you pay for Office 2013, it is yours. You are free to own it and to install it on your PC so that you can freely work on it and improve your productivity to points that you never imagined were possible. You can only, however, install Office 2013 in one single computer and as such, if you use more than one computer to work, you are only going to have this amazing productivity tool installed in one of these computers, while the other one will be sitting on the simple Notepad.
Purchasing Differences
On the other hand, Office 365 is a little bit different, both in the form of payment and in what is included in the software itself. When you buy Office 365, you are going to get the simple productivity tools, but then you are also going to get email space, shared calendars, storage space and even the ability to make and to edit documents online.
When it comes to the payment, there is a huge difference between Office 2013 and Office 365, it might actually be the biggest difference between these two. While you buy Office 2013 one time and then own it after that so that you can install it and work with it on your computer, Office 365 isn’t something that you purchase and then own. If you buy Office 365, you are buying a subscription for it that lasts a determined amount of time, depending on the deal you paid for.
You can use Office 365 and all of its advantages while you are in the period which you paid for, but after this period ends, you either pay for it again or you are going to lose the ability to edit your documents and this means that you are just going to be halted until you pay again – either that or you use notepad again.
You will still be able to view your documents however, so if you need to print them or to check something you are good to go, but if you actually need to get some work done and if you need to edit your documents, you will need to pay again.
Office 365 comes in a lot of ways and essentially it is going to be very useful for everyone that purchases the right package, as long as they pay for it, that is. Some of these packages even include everything that Office 2013 has and a little bit more (including Skype calls), but with the difference being that these packages are all still subscription services and not something that you can buy and own it yourself.
The best advantage that Office 365 has over Office 2013, however, is that it can be used in several computers for the same price. For just $9,99 a month, or $99 a year, you are able to have Office 365 up and running on up to five computers and this means that if you use a lot of computers while you work, you are going to have them all covered with the service.
Recently, Microsoft has also been releasing packages for Office 2013 so that they can suit the needs of its target audience a lot, lot better. Some of these are home versions, others are premium home versions and there are even business and university versions. The difference in these resides in the price and in the apps that you are going to get after you purchase the software. At least, it’ll be yours.