On March 30th 2020, Microsoft announced naming changes of Office 365 subscriptions for small and medium businesses.

“…The Office suite is core to the Microsoft productivity experience, and that’s not changing. But over the last several years, our cloud productivity offering has grown well beyond what people traditionally think of as “Office.” Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are more important than ever before. But in Microsoft 365 we’re breathing new life into these apps with the help of the cloud and AI, and we’re adding new, born-in-the-cloud experiences like Teams, Stream, Forms, and Planner. All of this is underpinned by a set of common services that keep your data safe and secure. It’s Office and a whole lot more.

…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…”
SOURCE

Existing subscribers do not need to do anything as their subscription names will be updated automatically with the new names.  Further, there are no price or business model changes to commercial subscriptions.

  • Office 365 Business Essentials is now Microsoft 365 Business Basic
  • Office 365 Business Premium is now Microsoft 365 Business Standard
  • Microsoft 365 Business is now Microsoft 365 Business Premium
  • Office 365 Business is now Microsoft 365 Apps for Business
  • Office 365 ProPlus is now Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise

To be clear, here is what is NOT changing:

  • Product features
  • Offer IDs, Part Numbers or SKUs
  • Subscription prices
  • Office 365 Enterprise, Education & Government names (Office 365 E1, E3, E5, A1, A3 A5, G1, G3 and G5)

Published by
Ian Matthews

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