Office online is a free version of Microsoft office. The main four core services in office online include word online, PowerPoint online, OneNote online and Excel online. Office online has functionality that covers to these four core services and has many limitations beyond. Office online has basic features added to it as it is for free. If you need more functions beyond office online, chances are you will need subscription for Microsoft office 365. Look here for more in pricing and subscription offers at Office 365 Business Plans.
Office online may be acceptable and suitable for most users as they have the basic services for any office core functions, that is word, excel, PowerPoint and OneNote are available to the user. If you need outlook, the outlook.com free web application should be sufficed. Along with these you can use OneDrive too with Microsoft office. However, in order to use Office Online, one has to be online as this product does not let you work offline. Another limitation of office online is that most of the advanced features of core services of word and PowerPoint are removed from the online features. Unless you don’t need them, chances are it will not be of much help. Also one need to go around for printing in Office online with conversion to pdf is required to take prints.
If you have need beyond basic office online, you have the options of getting an office 365 account. Office 365 is a cloud version of Microsoft office which has been collaborated with many business tools such as outlook, exchange online, SharePoint online, OneDrive, skype for business and many more. For more information you can visit O365CloudExperts. The concept of providing all these tools under the banner of one office 365 and hosting it over the cloud with great integrating technology for desktop and mobile alike has been nothing sort of a breakthrough.
Some of the features of office 365 and office online are as under
Office Online
- A basic public service by Microsoft
- It is an online service with no support offline whatsoever
- Date are stored in cloud space provided by Microsoft
- The basic core services of Microsoft word, PowerPoint, excel and outlook.com is provided.
- Online security and credentials are provided by Microsoft
- It’s a free public service offering
Office 365
- Cloud hosted data is one of the major benefit and feature of office 365
- All basic level services such as word, PowerPoint excel and many more available with office 365
- These services can be accessed and appended from any locations
- Syncing of data is seamless and effortless. Any number of user can work simultaneously with data
- The price of subscripting is negligible compared to the cost of buying standalone version
- Guaranteed 99% uptime of cloud services
- Easy support and training with features and presentations
- Better protection with inbuilt cloud protection against virus and malware
- Cheap renewal policies and pricing plans
- Individual mailing domain address
- Better and cleaner mail Inbox management
- Efficient mobile integration
- Easy integration with all services under cloud
- Can be easily logged into from any location
- Best storage for your data
- Easy data backup and retrieval under the cloud
- Protection against loss of data and data theft
Keeping in mind the different services of Microsoft office, it can be safely concluded that based on individual business need either office 365 or office online can be a better option. For basic users like student and home services, office online may be a best option as it does not incur any price and hassles of updating and upgrades. Nor does it require any antivirus or malware protection and it is provided for in online version. Most of users have only basic needs for MS office which include office, PowerPoint, excel and outlook.com. For advanced user of office 365 there are many business plans which include office ProPlus, Office 365 Enterprise E1, office 365 E2 etc. These plans have been created to suit a particular need and utility of an organization. Some business differs much from each other in complexities and thus we have different plans to choose from. You can see the different Office 365 Plans Comparison best suiting your need.