Microsoft Announces New Office 365 Packages For Small and Medium Businesses

Office 365 is the future of Office and Microsoft has been actively promoting it in schools via Office for Education and enterprises, but now the company has announced a new set of plans that brings the popular productivity suite to small and medium businesses (SMBs) as well. The company’s three new Office 365 packages or plans are aimed to strengthen and add flexibility to the SMBs who have up to 250 people in their employ. Let’s take a look at the features of each of the three plans Office 365 Business, Office 365 Business Essentials and Office 365 Business Premium.

New Office 365 Packages

Office 365 Business

Office 365 Business plan is available for $8.25 monthly if you make an annual commitment or $10 for a monthly commitment. The key features of Office 365 business include:

• Fully installed desktop applications of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, and OneNote on up to 5 PCs or Mac.
• Office on iPad and Windows tablets
• Office for smartphones so you can view and edit documents on the go
• Online versions of Office
• File storage and sharing up to 1TB per user

Office 365 Business Essentials

The Office 365 Business Essentials plan is available for $5 monthly if you make an annual commitment or $6 for a monthly commitment. The key features of Office 365 Business Essentials include:

• Online versions of Office
• File storage and sharing up to 1TB per user
• Business class email including a calendar, contacts and 50 GB of Inbox space
• Unlimited online meetings and HD video conferencing
• Enterprise level social networking with Yammer to keep employees better connected

Office 365 Business Premium

The Office 365 Business Premium plan is the best of both the above plans. It is available for $12.50 monthly if you make an annual commitment or $15 for a monthly commitment. The key features of Office 365 Business Premium include:

• Fully installed desktop applications of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, and OneNote on up to 5 PCs or Mac.
• Office on iPad and Windows tablets
• Office for smartphones so you can view and edit documents on the go
• Online versions of Office
• File storage and sharing up to 1TB per user
• Business class email including a calendar, contacts and 50 GB of Inbox space
• Unlimited online meetings and HD video conferencing
• Enterprise level social networking with Yammer to keep employees better connected

All three plans are available for purchase right away by new customers. As far as existing Office 365 SMB customers go, Microsoft is hoping to move them into the new Office 365 plans next year.

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