What’s in a name? In April this year Microsoft announced that they were rebranding some of their subscription packages.  A lot has happened since then and a quick review of the changes may be useful – not least so you can understand why there are “new” products listed in your billing!  The Office 365 packages impacted by the changes are primarily used by SMB customers and the majority of our IT Support customers in Glasgow and Edinburgh do use these products every day.

This name change gathered more Microsoft products under the ‘Microsoft 365’ branding, shifting away from ‘Office 365’ branding.  Microsoft stated the ‘Microsoft 365’ name better reflects the broader range of services now contained within Office, which includes new apps, such as Teams and Stream alongside the staples of Word, Excel etc.

The change is in name only.  There are no changes to pricing nor to the content or features of the packages. The change happened automatically and did not require any action from the user.

The key name changes are:

• Office 365 Business Essentials is now Microsoft 365 Business Basic
• Office 365 Business Premium is now Microsoft 365 Business Standard
• Office 365 Business is now Microsoft 365 Business Premium
• Office 365 Business and Office 365 Pro Plus is now Microsoft 365 Apps

Only the Enterprise products (E1, E2, E3) retain the ‘Office’ name.

Some of our IT Support customers did notice a change in their billing but outwith that the transition was smooth.

We provide procurement  guidance to our IT Support customers, helping them to work out which of the available Microsoft products best meets their needs.  If you would like more information on this or our other IT Support services then contact us today.