New
#50
There's no confusion, it couldn't be clearer. We are talking about Microsoft Office 2016 suite, not Office 365. Office 2016 Mac version is out, released in July, Windows version of Office 2016 will be released apparently on September 22nd.
All Office 365 subscribers, be it Personal, Home, Home & Student, University, Business or Enterprise plan can download and install Office 2013 suite of programs now for PC and / or Office 2016 for Mac (according to their subscription plan, not all plans contain full Office suite). For instance an Office 365 Home subscriber can install Office 2013 Pro now on 5 Windows computers, or Office 2013 Pro on 4 Windows computers and additionally Office 2016 Pro on one Mac (O365 Home includes 5 licenses of the Pro edition). The point is that at the moment when an O365 subscriber installs the latest released version of Office suite, Mac users get version 2016 and Windows users version 2013.
Last edited by Kari; 01 Sep 2015 at 05:55.
My understanding was that "Office 365" refers to a type of subscription. So a 5-computer Office 365 subscription would let me install the latest version of Office software on 5 computers, be they Macs or PCs, and also some iPads, tablets. If Microsoft ever bring out Office for Linux, I could install that too.
When Office 2016 comes out, I expect Office 365 subscribers who still have a valid subscription and are currently running Office 2013 will just be able to upgrade to 2016 when they want. (Hopefully not forced on them automatically.)
And now I understand the confusion a little better; a fellow beta tester explained that since the article was discussing Office for Mac, they made a distinction between the two by writing "Office for Windows". No wonder I'd never seen the term before! Sheesh!
It has been made pretty clear that there will no longer be a .msi version of Office; it will now be "click2run". However, one thing I'm still not clear on is whether we can get Office 2016 at a one-time purchase price. And if so, would we be able to get the updates/upgrades that the Office 365 subscribers get.
Probably not Linux per se, David, but there is a free Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) for Android tablets up to 10.1". A subscription will be needed for tabs over 10.1" though. I thought the Technical Preview (beta test) for that was over, but it seems it's ongoing.
It's my understanding that when O365 (2016) is released, subscribers will be upgraded at that time. I'm not thinking they will have a choice because a constantly updated/upgraded (totally up to date) Office is one of the purposes of the subscription.
Current Office 365 subscription users can install the Office 2016 for Windows Preview (beta) by setting the option under the "Install" settings in their account profile.
If you don't want the upgrade when it's released, disable the "Give me updates for other Microsoft products..." option in Windows update settings (start > settings > update and security > advanced options).
I installed the O 2016 beta over my current Office 365 Home Premium subscription (O 2013) without too much drama. It took me a while to remember/find some of my fave settings and options for Outlook (wish Microsoft would work on _that_). Otherwise no problems. As usual, don't do this on a production machine, etc., etc., etc.
Last edited by rbmorse; 01 Sep 2015 at 09:48.
I knew that was there, but hadn't given it much thought other than that it's there for the Technical Preview (beta test) group (I'm subscribed to ProPlus). But now that I seriously think about it, why would it be there for just the Tech Previewers, since we're already in the program!? :)