Change in the names of Office 365 subscription plans. New Microsoft 365 offerings.

Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365, announced some big changes in the Office 365 offerings. We are sharing the details from the important announcement on March 30, 2020. 

He shared:

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This is a natural evolution. Microsoft 365 began in 2017 as a licensing bundle for enterprise customers—a combination of Windows, Office, and Enterprise Mobility and Security (EMS). It has come a long way since then. Today, we call it “the world’s productivity cloud” and it represents our vision for the future of Microsoft productivity tools—an integrated set of apps and services that puts artificial intelligence (AI) and other cutting-edge innovations to work for you. And for small and medium-sized businesses, that includes new capabilities in Microsoft Teams to help you host rich meetings and events online; cloud file storage and sharing capabilities so you can collaborate from anywhere; and security and identity solutions to safeguard your business. At a moment when businesses are facing extraordinary health and economic challenges, we are pleased to bring our consumer and small and medium-sized business customers into this growing Microsoft 365 family.

New product names

The new product names go into effect on April 21, 2020. 

• Office 365 Business Essentials will become Microsoft 365 Business Basic.
• Office 365 Business Premium will become Microsoft 365 Business Standard.
• Microsoft 365 Business will become Microsoft 365 Business Premium.
• Office 365 Business and Office 365 ProPlus will both become Microsoft 365 Apps. Where necessary we will use the “for business” and “for enterprise” labels to distinguish between the two.

* ‘Microsoft 365 Apps’ can be used to refer to Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise if the audience context is clearly set. Otherwise, use the full product name. 

Today, we’re simply announcing name changes. But these changes represent our ambition to continue to drive innovation in Microsoft 365 that goes well beyond what customers traditionally think of as Office. The Office you know and love will still be there, but we’re excited about the new apps and services we’ve added to our subscriptions over the last few years and about the new innovations we’ll be adding in the coming months. 

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Are there any changes to prices or features?

There are no price changes, feature changes, or business model changes as part of this renaming. There are no naming changes for the Office 365 Enterprise or Microsoft 365 Enterprise SKUs.

For questions, please refer to the FAQs. If you still have a concern then you should raise a ticket and connect with our Technical Consultant.