As time goes by I realize that many companies, unfortunately Microsoft included, strive to keep the customer confused. I received a question last week from Lindsey saying she had just gotten a new computer and wanted to know which MS Office to get. She had Office 97 on her previous computer and yes, Windows XP. Now she has Windows 8.1 and no Office Suite yet.
She wanted to make sure the old documents would still work with the rest of the world. She does some occasional consulting work and needs to make sure her work is MS Office compatible. First off, congratulations to her for switching to a new computer with 8.1. Secondly, congrats on wanting to upgrade the office suite.
My first suggestion was Libre Office (libreoffice.org) since that is free and fully compatible with all MS Office modules. Libre Office is quite compatible with Office 97 as far as the mechanics of how it works. However, she, as many, is more comfortable spending the money and staying in the Microsoft world.
Now comes the confusion. As she read online she found out there are basically three versions of MS Office now available in the world. All of which will present her with a learning curve since her old version and the new ones are not similar. I am going to be very general from here on out since I do not want to write about the versioning for the next year. Visit office.microsoft.com for all the details.
First there is the standard of the line, MS Office 2013 which is installed locally on a computer. This is essentially the original Office that has evolved over the e-years. There are also a couple of versions there from around $140 to $450. The price depends on what you get with it. The base model for Students has Word, Excel PowerPoint and OneNote. The high end one, 2013 Professional Plus is mainly for larger businesses. It has all of the above plus Outlook, Publisher, Access, Infopath, Lync and Office Web Apps. Most of these the normal home and office user will never need. These are onetime prices and included upgrades within the 2013 version. Then you need to buy the next version if you want to stay on top. You will be licensed to install 2013 on one computer.
Next is MS Office 365, a cloud version. Wow! Let more confusion roll. Two versions are available, Personal and Home. These both have monthly fees (yes, you can also pay annually). Personal is currently $6.99/month and can be used on one PC or Mac, plus one iPad or Windows tablet. Home is $9.99/month and can be run on up to five PCs or Macs plus five iPads or Windows tablets. They both include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, Publisher, 20 GB of OneDrive storage (formerly SkyDrive) and 60 minutes per month of Skype calls. There are a few other items that are not that significant. The Home version is basically for your home if you have multiple computers or a small office.
Stay tuned for next week when I come up with a better answer…the one Lindsey decided on…which includes none of the above.
