Microsoft suggests that families cover their Office with a subscription to the Office 365 Premium for Home service, annually for 99 euros or monthly for 10 euros for the use of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access.
With one license, Office is installed on five systems (PC, Mac and/or Windows tablet), software updates are available at no additional charge and the available cloud space amounts to 27GB in Skydrive (up from 7GB in the free version). The subscription also covers 60 minutes of Skype phone calls to landlines and/or mobiles in pre-selected countries via Skype (you can see which countries you can call to landlines and/or mobiles: Which countries are included in Skype world minutes?).
At launch, Office supports PCs running Windows 7 or later and Macs running Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later. Office Mobile supports Windows Phone devices running Windows Phone OS 7.5 and later.
- Office 365 Premium for Home is available for a free 30-day trial. To try it out or subscribe, start at https://office.microsoft.com/el-gr/products/FX102853961.aspx
At the same time, Microsoft also launched the Office 365 Academic Edition, aimed at students, teachers and staff, at a cost of €79 for a four-year subscription.
Microsoft also proceeded with the international rollout of the updated versions of the classic Office suite: Office 2013 for Home and Students, Office 2013 for Home and Small Business, and Office Professional 2013. The international rollout of Office 365 for Business will begin on February 27.
- To help people find more time, Microsoft is introducing Time to 365 (https://www.office.com/timeto365), with user-generated content. Content is contributed by professionals, such as “techorating” expert Janna Robinson, as well as working parents: Among the tips, how to use OneNote to make a grocery list, a pointer to find the right size TV for your living room, and how to use Office apps to plan a kids’ party.
Office on demand, on computers without Office installed
If you have an Office 365 Home Premium or Office 365 Academic subscription, you can create a new document with Office On-Demand. Office On-Demand lets you use Office apps on computers that don't have Office installed or are running older versions of Office, such as a computer at the library, a business center, or a computer you borrowed from a friend. The apps are streamed to your computer instead of being permanently installed on it. The streaming speed depends on your Internet connection speed. When you close the apps, they're no longer available to other users of that computer. Also, documents you save to SkyDrive will no longer be available to other users unless you saved them locally on your computer. You can use Office On-Demand on a computer that's connected to the Internet and running Windows 7 or later.
To use Office On Demand, you need to go to www.office.com, sign in with your Microsoft account, and then, under the “MY OFFICE” tab, click Create New for the app you want to use. You’ll be able to start working on your new document within seconds, before all the features have even finished streaming. You can also access existing documents using Office On Demand, either from Office.com or SkyDrive. Simply sign in with your Microsoft account and open the document you want to work on.
In addition to Office On Demand, Microsoft also offers Office Web Apps that are great for quick viewing and editing, while Office On Demand provides the full capabilities of Office on your computer.
What happens when your Office 365 Premium for Home subscription expires?
As their Office 365 Home Premium subscription approaches its expiration date, subscribers receive notifications in their Office apps and via email, letting them know about the upcoming expiration. When it expires, the Office software apps enter a reduced-functionality, read-only state, meaning you can only view or print documents, but you won’t be able to create new documents or edit existing documents. To return to full Office functionality, you can purchase a new subscription or another version of Office for a PC, from Office.com or any participating retailer. You can also revert to a previous version of Office or use the free Office Web Apps on SkyDrive for basic editing.
When the subscription ends, the documents the user has stored in SkyDrive remain accessible for sharing and downloading. If you have reached the 7 GB free storage limit, you will not be able to add more documents. You will be able to access and edit documents stored in SkyDrive using Office Web Apps, or edit the documents and send the edited version. You can save your documents from SkyDrive to another computer or drive at any time.
If you have an annual subscription, you will be notified before you are charged. If you have a monthly subscription, you will not be notified. You will be charged monthly and you can cancel online at www.office.com/myaccount at any time.
More information about Office and Office 365 can be found in the Frequently Asked Questions section at office.microsoft.com in Greek.
