The upcoming changes to Office 365 mean a big boost for Office 365 Personal customers. They’ll get a lot more for their annual fee to Microsoft.
At the moment, Office 365 Personal allows a single user to install Office on (quoting Microsoft).
“1 PC or Mac, 1 tablet and 1 phone (including Windows, Apple®, and Android™ devices). ”
Only one install of Office desktop software (Office 2016 for Windows or Office 2016 for Mac).
The ‘traditional’ setup of Office on a desktop and laptop computer needed two Office 365 Personal licences (or more likely Office 365 Home).
The new Office 365 licence rules (from 1 October 2018) change that to:
Use Office on up to FIVE computers/devices at any one time.
Office 365 Personal will be available on a total of FIVE machines at the same time.
The type of machine does NOT matter. They can be Windows or Mac computers, tablets or smartphones – all that counts is the total number of sign-ins.
That ‘traditional’ setup now becomes possible on Office 365 Personal. Office on a desktop computer and a laptop plus three more devices are all OK.
But wait, there’s more
Microsoft has changed the way they count Office use. It used to be that each install of Office counted towards your total.
From 1 October what matters is how many devices have Office software signed-in with your Microsoft account.
Office 365 can be installed on an unlimited number of computers/devices. What’s counted is the number of sign-ins to Office software.
