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Create documents and save them in the cloud with this popular productivity tool from Microsoft

Create documents and save them in the cloud with this popular productivity tool from Microsoft

Vote: (2,161 votes)

Program license: Paid

Developer: Microsoft

Version: 2022

Works under: Windows

Also available for Mac

Vote:

Program license

(2,161 votes)

Paid

Developer

Version

Microsoft

2022

Works under:

Also available for

Windows

Mac

Pros

  • Includes over two dozen apps
  • Very strong cloud-based collaboration
  • Document access online and locally

Cons

  • Requires a monthly subscription
  • Outdated cloud storage system

Microsoft 365 is Microsoft's answer to Google Workplace - an upgrade to the venerable Microsoft Office platform that puts platform-neutral accessibility and online collaboration front and center. To put things differently, it takes most of the functionality that Google first brought to the table a few years ago and extends it to the Microsoft Office interface that so many professionals have been working with for their entire lives. The result is an all-in-one office suite that expertly bridges the old and new, but Microsoft's subscription-based model may rankle some.

The evolution of Office over the past few years has largely been in its transition to a more multi-platform format. Open up a version of Microsoft Office on your PC and it won't look very different than it did a decade ago. The big difference is that Microsoft 365 isn't tethered exclusively to your PC. It exists concurrently with apps for your phone and a web interface that allows you to access everything that exists within your Office file system wherever you have access to internet and a browser.

If that sounds functionally similar to Google Workplace, it is. But what distinguishes Microsoft 365 is that it still retains its traditional model as well. All of your files can be easily saved and accessed locally as well as online, so you don't have to worry about a temporary internet connection causing you to lose something you just wrote or not being able to access a collaborative spreadsheet because you're in an area with spotty reception.

And that's not to say that the breadth of the Microsoft Office platform hasn't grown over the years. The capabilities here for business professionals are vast, and there are instances where Google simply doesn't have a matching app or where it's arguably outclassed by Microsoft's alternative. And while all of Microsoft's expansions haven't been successful, they've spent three decades quietly building out the capabilities of their flagship workplace platform. Microsoft 365 gives you access to over two dozen pieces of software. Most are accessible online as well as locally, and a majority also come with mobile friendly apps. And while some of the software here is relatively specialized, the core fundamentals are strong, and the catalog is filled with some hidden gems you might have missed.

The core trifecta of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint continue to be recognized standards in the industry - and if their interfaces haven't changed that much for years, it's only because it's been so finely polished after decades of honing. The essentials for day-to-day navigation and work are as readily accessible as they've always been, but digging into the menus will reveal a wealth of deeper functions that younger platforms simply can't contend with. The collection of templates alone should be enough to cover a majority of work most people will need to do on a day-by-day basis, and the ability to create your own templates and share them on the cloud means you can easily create customized templates tailored to your business and share them with everyone in the department or the office.

Workgroups is out, but it's a reflection of Microsoft's move towards a more online-forward approach. All of the features you could expect from Workgroups sharing is instead more neatly integrated into the structure of existing programs. Storage comes in the form of OneDrive, and most plans offer at least a terabyte of storage per user. For typical office needs, that should be enough. For users that don't like the interface of PowerPoint, Sway offers a slick new approach to handling presentations. Your mileage may vary for more specific software like Microsoft Classroom or the business-class social media platform Yammer. But if Microsoft's success in its more fringe software is a bit inconsistent, that only emphasizes the quality of the core products here.

Even if there isn't an app that's covering something you need to do, chances are that there's a way to integrate it into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Microsoft's role as the developer of one of the world's leading operating systems brings some advantages - notably the wealth of APIs that they can leverage for integration. Most major third party software can integrate neatly into Microsoft 365, so you won't have to give up a platform you love for the sake of Microsoft's alternative.

But the big questions for many prospective Microsoft 365 users will hinge around one big issue: cost. Fortunately, there are budget-appropriate solutions that can scale well to the needs of self-employed professionals, large offices, and just about anything in between. The focus on Microsoft's part is on small businesses, and they've put together a wide variety of options to more flexibly accommodate different businesses. That makes scaling to seasonal business demands easy, and it gives you the means to adjust your plan as soon as you realize there's an issue.

For many users, the always-online approach signifies something more exciting: a more accelerated evolution of Microsoft 365 features. For the longest time, changes from programs in the Office suite were few and far between. They'd generally see an update of varying significance with each operating system release and minor tweaks in between. With users invested on a monthly basis, the incentive is greater for Microsoft to keep up with changing dynamics. And their update of Microsoft 365 has been pretty aggressive. Updates happen regularly, offering both quality of life improvements and resolution for varying security issues.

In addition to this, there are some exciting projects in the pipeline that are planned to be integrated into the larger Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Project Cortex's focus on artificial intelligence can potentially provide better analysis to the sort of data that's already filtering through your Microsoft 365 programs, but Fluid Framework could be the most exciting innovation to come to Office in years. The open source project is accessible but still in active development, and it looks to fundamentally change how collaborations are handled in Microsoft 365 by eliminating the document system entirely and replacing them with a cloud address.

Microsoft 365 is promising now, but what's really exciting is how promising it will become. The core components are strong in their own right, but as they become more tightly integrated with one another and powered by new technologies like artificial intelligence, they're only going to become more useful. In any case, Microsoft 365 as it exists now is a formidable contender for the position of best office suite.

Pros

  • Includes over two dozen apps
  • Very strong cloud-based collaboration
  • Document access online and locally

Cons

  • Requires a monthly subscription
  • Outdated cloud storage system