Microsoft today started the first phase of changing the names of its Office products to Microsoft 365, starting with personal (Personal) and family (Family) products and will soon reach all versions and editions.
“Today, we announce Microsoft 365 Personal and Family Subscriptions as the first Microsoft 365 consumer offerings. I'm pleased to be here to announce changes related to our Office 365 subscriptions for small and medium businesses – and Office 365 ProPlus . In the future, all of these products will use the Microsoft 365 brand.
This is a natural evolution. Microsoft 365 started in 2017 as a licensing package for enterprise customers – a combination of Windows, Office and Enterprise Mobility and Security (EMS). It's come a long way since then. Today, we call it “the productivity cloud of the world” and it represents our vision for the future of Microsoft productivity tools – an integrated set of applications and services that put artificial intelligence (AI) and other cutting-edge innovations to work for you.
And for SMBs, this includes new features in Microsoft Teams to help you organize meetings and events online; cloud file storage and sharing capabilities so you can collaborate from anywhere; and security and identity solutions to protect your business.
As businesses face extraordinary health and economic challenges, we are pleased to bring our small and midsize business customers and customers into this growing Microsoft family..” Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365 concluded in a statement presented today on the website Microsoft.com
New Product Names
New product names are effective April 21, 2020. This is a product name change only and there are no price or feature changes at this time.
- Office 365 Business Essentials will become the Microsoft 365 Business Basic.
- Office 365 Business Premium will become the Microsoft 365 Business Standard.
- Microsoft 365 Business will become Microsoft 365 Business Premium.
- Office 365 Business and Office 365 ProPluif only will make Microsoft Apps. Where will they use the labels “for business” and “for company” to distinguish between the two.
Our Recommendation
It is very common for companies to only pay attention to the change in the licensing rules for Office 365 after they happen and that is why our work methodology shows that this proactive analysis is of great importance.
This is one of the best ways to avoid a Microsoft Audit.
These changes to licensing rules can be tracked and managed by a Center of Excellence in Software and Cloud Governance (CCoE). You can use a single hybrid cloud governance platform, where you can control the costs of your VMware datacenter as well as AWS, Azure and Google public clouds.
We are 4Matt Tecnologia, specialists in Software Governance and CCoE, Cloud Center of Excellence.