Microsoft’s first big announcement of the year is all about consumers, like you and I, which perhaps indicates a newer and wider direction that the company wants to take. The announcements about the new Microsoft 365 subscriptions focused on consumers, and what they would require at work and also in the hours after work, are in focus. For starters, Microsoft 365 subscription bundles will replace the Office 365 consumer plans that we can subscribe to at this time. Then there is the all the Microsoft Family Safety app, a consumer version of Microsoft Teams and also an AI-powered service called Microsoft Editor.
First things first, the Microsoft 365 subscriptions. These subscription plans replace the current Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal subscriptions—and the changeover happens automatically on April 22. The Microsoft 365 subscriptions are priced at $6.99 per month for Personal (one person) and $9.99 a month for a Family (up to six people) subscription. We expect the India pricing for Microsoft 365 to be similar to the Office 365 plans at this time—Office 365 Home for up to 6 people costs Rs 5,299 per year while Office 365 Personal for single user is priced at Rs 4,199 per year. The Microsoft 365 plans will include access to the Office apps including Word, Outlook and Publisher, as well as the OneDrive cloud storage and video chat platform Skype. Update: Microsoft has confirmed that Microsoft 365 Personal costs Rs 4199 a year while Microsoft 365 Family is for Rs 5299 a year and can be shared with up to 6 users.
“More than 38 million people subscribe to Office 365, which includes the modern, most up-to-date Office desktop apps, 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage per person (enough to store thousands of high res photos or hundreds of hours of videos), 60 Skype minutes to call mobile phones and landlines, advanced security to protect you from malware and phishing, and ongoing technical support,” says Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President, Modern Life, Search & Devices, Microsoft.
There will be additions to Microsoft 365 in the coming months. The first will be the Microsoft Family Safety app. This is designed as a tool for parents to get insights on the activity of their child, on Windows PCs, Android phones and the Xbox console, all synced in one place. The location sharing feature should allow families to be up to date with critical movements, like when their child reaches or leaves school or if a parent has reached work safely. Microsoft says a preview of the app rolls out for Android and iOS in the coming months, before a full roll-out later in the year.
Microsoft says Skype, its video chat app for personal and small business use, has seen a significant spike in usage. “Skype has seen an increase in usage, with 40 million people using it daily, up 70 percent month over month and, we are seeing a 220 percent increase in Skype to Skype calling minutes month over month,” says Microsoft.
They also say that Microsoft Teams, a more powerful chat, video conferencing and collaboration tool for businesses, now has 44 million users. Now, Microsoft wants to bring Teams to personal users. Should the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger be worried? Microsoft says the personal version of Teams will be great for group chats, video calls, share photos and videos, coordinate schedules, share lists and even get location updates from Microsoft Family Safety app, to name a few. The Teams for personal usage will launch later in the year, and in the meantime, Microsoft is nudging you towards Skype.
Office 365 users should also be getting a new AI-powered Editor feature on Word, Outlook.com and as extensions for the Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome web browsers. It will offer sentence Rewrite suggestions, check for plagiarism and make suggestions for clarity, conciseness, formality and inclusiveness.
Microsoft 365 subscribers will also get exclusive access to more than 200 new Powerpoint templates and thousands of images and videos from Getty Images. Microsoft is also bundling in 300 new fonts and 2,800 new icons for use across Office.
Microsoft also has a new Password Monitor feature for its Edge web browser. This will let you know if any of the passwords you have saved for online accounts in the Edge web browser, have been compromised in data breaches.
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