Microsoft announced today the launch of a subscription based version of Microsoft Office 2013, Office 365 Home Premium for PCs, Macs and Windows Mobile tablets. Up to five devices will be able to run the service under one subscription for the price of $99.99 per year. Subscribers will get all of the full featured Office 2013 applications like Microsoft Access, Excel, One Note, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word.
Office 365 Home Premium offers subscribers handy communications and productivity features. One beneficial feature is being able to have instant access to settings and documents across all devices. For the first time, rather than as software to be installed and updated from time to time, Office is being offered as a service. Automatic updates of the service allow subscribers to always have the latest version of Office without having to purchase new software. "This is a major leap forward," said Kurt DelBene, President of the Microsoft Office Division.
Office 365 Home Premium offers 7GB of Microsoft cloud storage, with an additional 20 GB of SkyDrive storage. Another beneficial feature for staying in touch with family and friends is the addition of 60 minutes of Skype calls made per month to cell phones and PCs in select countries around the world. A built in social network feature in Outlook allows users to import networks like Facebook or LinkedIn, making it easy to manage social status updates and user profiles.
Microsoft first launched Office 365 for businesses 18 months ago and received a positive response. Among small and medium sized businesses in particular, Microsoft reports a 150 percent increase of users over the past 12 months. For new businesses to take advantage of premium features, starting Feb. 27, there will be a new updated premium version of Office 365 suite for businesses.
"We are incredibly well and uniquely positioned to delight our customers with stunning new Windows PCs, tablets and phones that light up with world-class Today's announcement of Office 365 Home Premium is our next bold step forward.", says Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer on the official Microsoft blog. Office 365 Home Premium Suite is currently available in 21 languages and users can test it out using a free 30-day trial subscription.
