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Microsoft launches Office 365 Personal in the UK

by Mark Tyson on 16 April 2014, 17:16

Tags: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), PC

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Microsoft has officially announced UK pricing for its Office 365 Personal, a consumer subscription option which will offer users a plan that's cheaper and meant just for personal use. Notably for iOS users it is the cheapest option to unlock editing and document creation in the new iPad apps.

Pricing information for UK users has finally been released with the new Microsoft Office 365 Personal available for £5.99 per month or £59.99 per year, saving about £12. (US prices are $6.99 USD/month or $69.99 USD/year) This will allow a single user to be licensed to access the Microsoft's Office suite on one PC or Mac plus a tablet, which can now include Apple's iPad, thanks to the recently launched Office for iPad. It will permit users access to Office 365 services along with the rights to download and install the Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote applications locally.

In addition 60 minutes of Skype calls per month and an extra 20GB of OneDrive storage space is offered to any who subscribe to the Office 365 Personal plan. These extras would total to around £3 in value if bought separately.

"An Office 365 Personal subscription allows for one PC or Mac, and one tablet (including iPad) to be connected to the service, and is the best option for individuals interested in using Office 365," said Jevon Fark, senior marketing manager for Microsoft Office, on the Office blog. "By offering Office 365 Personal, in addition to Office 365 Home, we are better positioned to deliver the right Office to a broader range of households – whether it's an individual or a family of five."

Office 365 Home was previously the lowest priced subscription at £7.99 a month, or £79.99 a year. This Home plan makes a lot more sense for a household/family as it includes access for up to five users on one PC/Mac and one tablet each.

Microsoft also announced a series of updates to Office Online on Tuesday, adding several new features to its suite of online productivity apps and including shortcut installations for ChromeOS users.



HEXUS Forums :: 11 Comments

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It's designed for personal, IE non business use and they want to charge £60 a year? I can see that really taking off. NOT.

If you buy an iPad (Or a Mac) you have free access to Pages + Numbers + Keynote, either of your device or online. They are lovely apps, stable, easy to use and ‘well featured’. For most personal users they are not only as good as office apps but not being bogged down with a zillion ‘pro’ features they're much better.

I'd have a hard time recommending a £60 subscription to a truly personal user.
I rather stick with non-cloud office or open source Libre.
Office 2010 is fine for my needs, got it at ‘education’ prices because of my Mum (works in school) so there's no way I'd pay as much PER YEAR just to get some minor upgrades.

There's no way I'd pay to access file saved on onedrive, I'll just use one of the many other ‘office’ apps that cost from free to about £10 that can access onedrive files.

The saving of £12 just doesn't really cut it when you think about what you actually lose, you can only have 1 user versus 4.

If I ever did ‘subscribe’ to office (unlikely for my needs) I'd pay the extra £12 and let my parents use it too, it's only a quid a month extra…. although I suspect this is MS ‘deliberate worse value pricing’ in action, same as what apple etc do too to make you buy the next one up etc.

For what they're saying is a ‘personal’ package they need to half the ‘family’ pack price in my opinion.
It'll come as no surprise to anyone that knows me if I say I'm not paying a subscription for an Office suite, and that's that. Moreover, I wouldn't store my files on such a cloud service if they paid me. It just ain't happening. Ever.
Probably safe to assume that payment is by Direct Debit, something i want less of not more of.