Hi everyone, Kevin here. Today we are going to look at what is Microsoft 365. You might have
heard of it before. It's this subscription thing that Microsoft offers, but anytime I bought a
computer in the past, I've already had Office. So why would I want to pay for something like
that on an ongoing basis? And this reminds me of a conversation I had with my dad a long time ago.
I was working at Microsoft at the time and I remember I flew home to visit him in New Jersey
and my dad said, hey, Kevin, come over here. I have something I want to ask you. And I said,
yeah, what's up? What do you want to ask me? He said, you know, this whole Microsoft and
this subscription thing for software, I just, I really, really don't like it. I just want to
buy my software and just have it. Now, first off, that was kind of like a stab in the heart
because this is the stuff I was working on and my dad was questioning whether it was worthwhile
paying for. But at the same time, I really kind of understood his perspective. This is how software
was sold for the longest time. You'd go to the store, you'd buy a new computer and you'd get
Microsoft Office and then you wouldn't worry about it until you bought your next PC. Today,
we're going to look at what is Microsoft 365? What do you get with it? What are all the benefits?
At the end of this video, I'd love to hear your comments down below. Do you think you'll become
a subscriber or do you think it just makes sense to buy Microsoft Office one time, or maybe you'll
even use some of the free alternatives? I'd love to hear what you think. Before we jump in, I think
it makes sense to take a moment to look at how we even got here. In the past to buy Office, well,
typically what would happen is you would go to Dell or you go to HP and you'd buy a new computer.
And as part of that process of buying a new computer, they would push Microsoft Office. And
you could buy Office for maybe two, three, $400, depending on the version of Office you wanted.
And then that would come with your computer and you now had Office and you wouldn't have to think
about it again for a very long time. And most consumers with PCs, the refresh cycle tends to
be about three to four years before you buy your next PC. So, people wouldn't think about Office
for probably about four years, and then they'd go through that same process again. Now what's
really interesting is Microsoft too also matched this same exact buying cycle. So Microsoft would
have three year releases and every three years you'd have a new big release of Microsoft Office.
So you'd spend the first year planning out what you wanted to build as part of that next release.
Then you'd spend the next two years going through and actually building it and then testing it
and getting it ready to ship. As an interesting aside at Microsoft, usually what would happen is
you'd join a team and you'd be part of that team for three years. And then once the big
shipment happened, you'd go, and you'd switch to a new team and try working on something else.
And that process continued many, many cycles. But when you think about that, waiting three years to
get a new release out, that's a really long time, especially in terms of technology. These days you
have new features, new functionality coming out on a monthly basis. Some cases even a weekly basis
and at the extreme, even on a daily basis. Now the industry was shifting, and Microsoft had to match
this. So that's when they introduced a service called Office 365. The reason it was called Office
365 is it pulled together all of the traditional Office apps. And when you think of traditional
Office apps, those are things like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. So you could get a subscription,
you got access to that software and you would get frequent and constant updates and fixes over your
service term. Now over time, they've had this thing Office 365 and Microsoft has continued
to add more things into that subscription. So instead of just Word, Excel, PowerPoint,
now you get a lot more than just that. You get Forms, you get To Do, you get Family Safety,
you get OneDrive, you get all of these other things, which aren't really considered part
of the traditional Office or the Office suite. And so Microsoft said, well, we should probably
update the name to reflect the broader scope. That's when the name Office 365 shifted over to
Microsoft 365. And that happened back in April of 2020, just to reflect that larger scope. Now you
might be wondering why is it called Microsoft 365? OK, I get it. There are a lot of products included
as part of this subscription, but where did the name come from? Why does it have a 365 at the end?
Well, Microsoft views it and many consumers view it as a service. You're getting constant updates,
you're getting storage space, you're getting all of these benefits on an ongoing basis. So the 365,
well, that represents how many days are in the year, and you get your service every single day
of the year. So that's what brought together Microsoft and 365. And now you could argue on a
technicality that it should be 365.25 because of leap year, but you get the point. Anyway, let's
jump in and actually see what are the benefits of Microsoft 365 and what do you get with it?
First off, you can install all of the different traditional Office apps on your computer.
Here, for example, you can install Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, and Access. And
not only can you install them on your PC, but you can also install them on your tablet
or on your phone. And best of all, anytime any software updates come out or maybe new features
get released, you get access to all of those. Now, what are some examples of that? In Microsoft Word,
there's now a new dark mode that changes the canvas to dark, helping your eyes relax a
little bit more. In Microsoft PowerPoint, you can now create and save your very own animated GIF.
In Microsoft Excel, you can now very easily convert data from a PDF into an Excel spreadsheet.
Also, there are a whole bunch of new data types where you can easily import data related to any
one of these categories. Now, those are just some of the most recent examples of
new features in these different products, but keep in mind, anytime something new comes out,
you get access to that with a Microsoft 365 subscription. Now you might be thinking,
well, hey, that's great, but really, I just need a basic word processor and my old version of Office
or even some of the free alternatives out there, well, they do all that. Basically,
a word processor is a commodity these days. Why would I want to pay for a subscription? OK, I got
it. Why don't we jump in now and let's take a look at Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and look at how
they're starting to connect to different services, so you get value on an ongoing basis. I'm now back
within Microsoft Word and here's an example of a service that has been integrated into Word.
Up here on the Home tab, over on the far side, there is something called Editor, and this will
help you improve your writing. So here I could click on that, and I get spelling suggestions,
I get grammar suggestions, and then here it also helps me refine and improve my writing.
So, if you've ever used Grammarly before, this is Microsoft's equivalent of it, and you get this
included with your Microsoft 365 subscription. In Microsoft Excel, you get access to money in Excel,
and this helps connect your Excel spreadsheet to your banking information. So, this way you can
stay on top of your finances directly in Excel. And in Microsoft PowerPoint, up on the Home tab
over on the far side here too, you get access to design ideas. So here I created a slide
called the Kevin Cookie Company and PowerPoint looks at the content of my slide and here it's
identified all of these different design ideas for my slide. Here I have some animated backgrounds
and I have different images that match the text on the slide. So, this will help me create a much
more beautiful looking presentation. Along with design ideas, up here too, by being a subscriber,
I get access to a massive quantity of different fonts. Here as I scroll through all of my fonts,
you'll see this cloud icon next to all of these different fonts. I can download these fonts for
free for use in my presentations. So now I can really make my slide look how I want it to look.
Also, by being a subscriber, I get access to an ever-expanding collection of templates. Here on
templates.office.com, you can see a preview of all of the different templates that you get access to
across all of the different traditional Office applications. Back within Microsoft PowerPoint,
but also available in Word and Excel, I get access to thousands and thousands of royalty free images
that I can use in all of my creations. Here I can search for different images and here you can see
just a sampling of the different images that I get access to. Along with images, I also get access
to thousands of different icons, cut out people, stickers, and I even get stock videos as well that
I can incorporate into my content. So far we've been looking at the traditional Office apps and
the value you get from them. However, there's a lot more than just that. You also get access to a
service called Microsoft OneDrive, and this allows you to store files in the cloud. With my account,
I get one terabyte of space. Now, in my opinion, the storage alone is one of the most compelling
parts of a subscription. With my OneDrive account, I set up my PC so it automatically syncs with
OneDrive and I can back up all of my files. Once I put my files in the cloud, I can access these from
anywhere. So let's say I go on a trip to Europe, I can get to my files wherever I happen to be.
Also, I can share these files with others if I want to work together with people.
So here I can share a folder or I could share an individual file. So if I click on this,
I can share and we could work together now. Along with all of that, you also get something
called the Personal Vault, and this is a place where you can store very sensitive information,
like maybe your passport photo or your social security card. To be able to access this folder,
you need two-factor authentication, and then it'll lock after a set amount of time. Moving on, in
Microsoft Outlook on the web, you can check your email and there are no advertisements that appear
alongside your messages. This way you can just focus on your email. This now brings us to Skype,
and this was one of the most popular messaging apps back in the day, before FaceTime, Messenger,
WhatsApp, and all these other communication apps came along. And yes, this is also part
of a subscription. To be fair, I really don't use it all that much, but there is one really
nice perk. You get 60 minutes of free worldwide calling with a subscription. And anytime I travel,
I've used this often if let's say I need to call a local number. Now you're probably starting
to get a sense for why it's called Microsoft 365 instead of Office 365. There's a lot of additional
value beyond just the Office apps. And here's yet another example of an app called Family Safety.
This is a place where you can set screen time limits. You could set gaming limits all for your
family. And Microsoft is trying really hard. If Microsoft products alone aren't compelling enough,
they also offer partner deals as well that come with a Microsoft 365 subscription. So here you
can get a three month membership with Adobe, or you can get some credit towards one-on-one private
lessons. Now, personally, I don't think these are that compelling. However, Microsoft promises that
more value is constantly coming to all of these different partner offers. And lastly, with a
subscription, you also get live tech support. So, if you have any questions or maybe you're running
into some issues, you can talk with someone at Microsoft via chat and you can get support. We've
looked at all of the different value you get from Microsoft 365, but of course the question arises,
what is all of that going to cost me? And do I think the cost is less than all the value that I'm
going to get? Microsoft 365 offers two different plans. One of them is a personal plan. So,
if you're just an individual and you want to get it for yourself, it's $70 per year. If you're part
of a family, or if you have multiple people coming in with you, it'll cost you a hundred dollars per
year. This is a plan that I'm personally on and I have a full family. So, we have six people
using this plan. And when you have six people, it's an incredible deal. It's a hundred dollars
per year, but if you divide that by six, it works out to $17 per year or $1.40 per month.
And to get one terabyte of cloud storage space per account for only $1.40 a month, and also
get access to all of these different Office apps with stock images and all the other functionality,
it's pretty much a steal. Now, despite all of this, you're still going to have some people
who just don't like getting a subscription. So, it's like my dad, you just want to pay one
time. And luckily Microsoft does still offer some options. Here, for example, if you want Outlook,
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and you just want to pay once, it costs $250. If you just want Word, Excel,
and PowerPoint, and you don't care about Outlook, there's also another option called Office Home
and Student. And for $150, you just pay one time and then you have access to all of these
apps in perpetuity. At least for this version. The next time the subsequent version comes out,
you'll have to either dish out money again, or you could just keep using the 2019 version. All right.
Well, that in a nutshell is what Microsoft 365 is. And if you're wondering, well, am I personally a
subscriber? Yeah, of course I am. Why would I pull together a video on this? At least for me, I see
enough value that exceeds what I end up paying. So, for me, it makes sense. Now I would love to
hear from you. Do you think it makes sense to get a subscription to Microsoft 365? If not, why not?
I know there are a lot of other options out there, but I'd love to hear your thinking down below
in the comments. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this video. If you did, please give it a thumbs
up. To see more videos like this, make sure to hit that subscribe button. Also, if you want to see
me cover any other topics in the future, leave a note down below. All right, well, that's all
I had for you today. I hope you enjoyed. And as always, I hope to see you next time. Bye.