About Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365, formerly Office 365, is a cloud collaboration tool that provides a private and secure space to store, share and edit files and documents, to connect dispersed teams using shared calendars, messaging and conferencing tools, and to improve your brand experience using branded emails and online websites.
The business class email provided by Microsoft 365 allows for 50 GB of storage per user and the ability to send messages of up to 25 MB. This enables you to send images within emails and to apply custom formatting. You can customize your inbox rules and notifications, and update your calendar and to-do list, to help prioritize tasks. Communicate with colleagues more effectively with online availability statuses to instigate online chat, instant messaging tools and one-to-one, or one-to-many voice and video calling.
Microsoft 365 provides collaboration and knowledge sharing tools for both internal and external purposes. You can allow external project stakeholders and clients to access documents, and create project-specific mailboxes and websites for specific teams, complete with automatic policies and rights protection.
You can also use Microsoft 365 to build blogs and wikis for further knowledge sharing, as well as assigning tasks to team members and tracking tasks on a timeline. Enterprise plans for Microsoft 365 provide social networking tools to further enhance communication and collaboration.
Pricing starting from:
$6.00/month
- Free Version
- Free Trial
- Subscription
Top 5 alternatives to Microsoft 365
Key benefits of Microsoft 365
Email and calendars
Take your email and calendar with you on business trips, with access from your computer or mobile device.
Website
Create an attractive website with no special skills required. Easy-to-use online tools will do the job for you.
Office Web Apps
Save your documents in the cloud and edit them from anywhere.
File Sharing
Collaborate with your colleagues online: Respond to comments and status updates made by partners, colleagues or customers. Store and organize important documents with 1TB of storage per user.
Instant Messaging
Use your computer for video calls and to conduct online meetings, or connect with your co-workers through instant messaging.
With native iOS and Android apps available for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, OneNote, OneDrive, Skype for Business, and Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 helps you to be productive on the go.
Devices
Business size
Markets
Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, United Kingdom, India, Japan, Mexico, United States and 5 others
Supported Languages
Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, zh-hant and 21 others
Pricing starting from:
$6.00/month
- Free Version
- Free Trial
- Subscription
Top 5 alternatives to Microsoft 365
Images
Features
Total features of Microsoft 365: 69
- @mentions
- Activity Tracking
- Address Book
- Alerts/Notifications
- Appointment Management
- Archiving & Retention
- Audit Trail
- Booking Management
- Brainstorming
- Calendar Management
- Calendar/Reminder System
- Chat/Messaging
- Collaboration Tools
- Commenting/Notes
- Conferencing
- Contact Database
- Contact Management Software
- Customizable Templates
- Customization
- Data Synchronization
- Data Visualization Software
- Discussions / Forums
- Document Automation
- Document Generation Software
- Document Management Software
- Document Storage
- Document Templates
- Email Management Software
- Email Templates
- Event Management Software
- File Management
- File Sharing Software
- File Transfer
- Full Text Search
- Inbox Management
- Live Chat Software
- Meeting Management
- Microsoft Outlook Integration
- Mobile Access
- Multi-Language
- Multi-User Collaboration
- Multiple Format Support
- Multiple Projects
- Notes Management
- Office Suite
- Offline Access
- Presentation Tools
- Project Templates
- Real Time Notifications
- Real-time Updates
- Reminders
- Remote Access/Control
- Reporting/Analytics
- Room Booking
- Scheduling Software
- Search/Filter
- Secure Data Storage
- Task Management Software
- Task Progress Tracking
- Team Calendars
- Template Management
- Templates
- To-Do List
- Two-Factor Authentication
- Two-Way Audio & Video
- Version Control
- Video Conferencing Software
- Video Streaming
- Video Support
Alternatives
Google Workspace
Google Docs
LibreOffice
Apache OpenOffice
Reviews
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- Industry: Legal Services
- Company size: 2-10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
-
Review Source
Overall rating
- Ease of Use
- Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10
Microsoft 365 Has All You Need
Reviewed on 26/11/2021
Overall experience is great. For my personal use, I would most likely use one of the free options...
Overall experience is great. For my personal use, I would most likely use one of the free options that would work just as well for my needs. However, if utilizing software from a business standpoint, it's unbeatable.
Pros
Software is user friendly and simple to navigate. Has every functionality you'd want for day to day use.
Cons
It is a bit pricey and there are other programs that offer very good, comparable software for no fee.
- Industry: Hospital & Health Care
- Company size: 201-500 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
-
Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support Software
- Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10
Microsoft 365 Review
Reviewed on 08/10/2021
We used a data server, an email server and a messaging server. All this generating expenses with...
We used a data server, an email server and a messaging server. All this generating expenses with energy, maintenance and constant modifications. After migrating to Microsoft 365, we were able to cut our hardware spending by more than half, not to mention we have a 100% guarantee of service stability. And because it's all part of the same toolset, it all integrates beautifully.
Pros
It's great to be able to use the work tools from anywhere, whether on a computer, tablet or mobile. Best of all, everything is synchronized and accessible both online and offline.
Cons
What I still see as a negative point is that applications in web mode have difficulties to edit documents from other software in the same segment.
Alternatives Considered
Google WorkspaceReasons for Switching to Microsoft 365
What mattered was the stability and support of the product.- Industry: Nonprofit Organization Management
- Company size: 2-10 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
-
Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support Software
- Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10
Essential for a Non-Profit!
Reviewed on 26/11/2021
We were using OpenOffice previously and suffered through it until we could get our Microsoft grant....
We were using OpenOffice previously and suffered through it until we could get our Microsoft grant. It immediately made a huge difference in our productivity, collaboration, and file management.
Pros
All the features are important and useful. The ability to communicate and track information has been very important to our starting up and operating.
Cons
It has been an extremely steep learning curve. There is a lot that we want to use but don't have the time to fully learn it and I have a technology degree! I find myself spending at least two hours out of my day trying to learn new IT tasks for our new non-profit because the rest of the staff have zero knowledge or desire. Our budget is not where we can hire a dedicated IT tech.
- Industry: Law Enforcement Software
- Company size: 51-200 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
-
Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support Software
- Likelihood to recommend 6.0 /10
50/50
Reviewed on 19/01/2019
I'm on the fence about Office 365. Some of the features work really well like the applications....
I'm on the fence about Office 365. Some of the features work really well like the applications. Other features like OneDrive aren't as trustworthy as I had hoped. Our company has had issues with accessing files on OneDrive and SharePoint. Microsoft tech support usually has the problem resolved within 24 hours. But for a 24 hours facility, sometimes that's not fast enough. Ultimately the decision was not mine to move to Office 365. Had I known it wasn't very reliable, I would have waited to transition to it.
Pros
SharePoint is a good function for a medium to large sized business. We use it to post documents that our staff use consistently so they can find everything in one place. The documents can get kind of buried in the file structure but it's ideally the same as Windows Explorer once you get used to it. It's nice that you can personalize the sites with background photos and text. Another great feature is the downloadable apps that you get with an E3 account. You can download the apps on a number of computers so you can use it anywhere. Additionally you can download the apps on your phone or tablet.
Cons
OneDrive has given me some trouble when I've got the folder linked with my computer. If you upload things to the OneDrive via internet browser, it's great. Once I added it to my desktop and opened the file window to be used in addition to the web browser, it got questionable. I would open files from the file explorer window and edit them and they wouldn't upload to OneDrive when saved. It's something you really have to keep an eye on. Maybe it was my network card or internet connection. But when you have more than one person editing the same files at different times, you never know if you're getting the most up to date version of that file. I've lost a lot of data because of this. Also when you create Groups and try to use that group for an email, you have to be sure to expand the group or it won't be sent as an email. It will send as a group message and most of the people I work with don't know how to view that.
- Industry: E-Learning
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
-
Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10
A Productivity suite for everyday job you'd never change!
Reviewed on 28/09/2021
As a freelance translator, I definitely use Microsoft Office on a daily basis. I use the Mac...
As a freelance translator, I definitely use Microsoft Office on a daily basis. I use the Mac version of Office, and this software is extremely beneficial to me. I prefer to type scripts in Word. The formatting options are quite extensive. I use Excel to keep track of schedules, client lists, and monthly expenses. While PowerPoint is used to present to clients, the templates provided are quite good and visually appealing. Collaboration features that make it easy to see changes made by peers, as well as 1 TB of online storage that is more than enough for document storage. However, the monthly subscription fee is quite pricey for personal, and the iPad application's numerous limitations frequently prevent me from working when i didn't carry my Mac.
Pros
It just all-in-one complete productivity suite you need to do your job. An auto-save document feature (i use OneDrive) that saves me thousand time, and the fact that this software is a standard in every industry brings convenience to its users to exhange document and work on same project.
Cons
The subscription fee which pretty expensive for individual, the iPad app is less intuitive as it doesn't offer full function like the desktop version.
Reasons for Switching to Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 offer compatibility support and being standard means eliminating error formatting on documents.Microsoft 365 FAQs
Below are some frequently asked questions for Microsoft 365.Q. What type of pricing plans does Microsoft 365 offer?
Microsoft 365 offers the following pricing plans:
- Starting from: $6.00/month
- Pricing model: Subscription
- Free Trial: Available
Office 365 Business: $8.25/user/month (billed annually) or $10/user/month (billed monthly). Office 365 Business Premium: $12.50/user/month (billed annually) or $15/user/month (billed monthly). Office 365 Business Essentials: $5/user/month (billed annually) or $6/user/month (billed monthly).
Q. Who are the typical users of Microsoft 365?
Microsoft 365 has the following typical customers:
Self Employed, 2-10, 11-50, 51-200, 201-500, 501-1,000, 1,001+
Q. What languages does Microsoft 365 support?
Microsoft 365 supports the following languages:
Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, zh-hant
Q. Does Microsoft 365 support mobile devices?
Microsoft 365 supports the following devices:
Android (Mobile), iPhone (Mobile), iPad (Mobile)
Q. What other apps does Microsoft 365 integrate with?
Microsoft 365 integrates with the following applications:
Microsoft Bookings, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Invoicing, Microsoft OneNote, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft StaffHub, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Word, OneDrive, Skype for Business
Q. What level of support does Microsoft 365 offer?
Microsoft 365 offers the following support options:
Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base Software, Phone Support, 24/7 (Live rep), Chat
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