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Office is becoming Microsoft 365 – or is it?

Microsoft has announced that “Microsoft Office” is now “Microsoft 365” – big deal.  That already happened back in 2019 and the Office name will still be used. Is it really a name change or a bit of hype?

What’s really changed?  There’s a new logo – that’s all.  As I said, “big deal”.

Source: Microsoft’s marketing “something out of nothing” department

Office has been Microsoft 365 for the last few years.  Back in 2019, the “Microsoft 365” branding started appearing and since then Microsoft has insisted on using the Microsoft 365 naming, despite push back from customers and even Microsoft’s own staff.

The perpetual license, single purchase, non-subscription product will still be called Microsoft Office, e.g. Office 2021, Office 2019 etc.  Talk of the “Microsoft Office” name being dropped is quite wrong.

All that’s happening is a few “Office” apps are being branded “Microsoft 365”.

Microsoft 365 is still Microsoft 365

“Microsoft 365” is still Microsoft 365 though many people in and out of Redmond still call it Office or Office 365.  Perhaps that’s the point of this so-called announcement.

Despite three years of “Microsoft 365” branding, the name change hasn’t taken with either the public or some inside Microsoft itself.  Shifting people from the two-decades plus “Microsoft Office” name is difficult, some might say pointless.

The name change has generated hundreds of clickbait headlines about the “End of Microsoft Office” or “Office is disappearing” and similar nonsense.  Perhaps that’s Microsoft’s reasoning?  To generate plenty of articles about the name change, pretending it’s something new. 

After all, now more people know about the “Microsoft 365” branding even though it makes no difference to their daily use of Microsoft 365 software, Office 2021 or earlier versions of Office.

A new Microsoft 365 icon

Oh, and there’s a new icon for Microsoft 365 !  See above image, where the orange logo is replaced with a blue/purple hexagon.

Please try to contain your excitement.

If it looks familiar, you’re not wrong.  It’s very much like the Edge browser blue/green icon.

“all-new”??? Microsoft 365”

Mentions of “all-new” Microsoft 365 — just isn’t true at all.  There are some coming additions to Microsoft 365, most notably Designer, but otherwise it’s the same Office software.

Microsoft thinks that saying “all new” will fool some people … and they’re sadly right.  But calling something “all new” worries many more paying customers who prefer the familiar and stable.

There are some interesting and useful announcements from Microsoft in the past week, but there’s almost nothing in the supposed ‘change’ from “Microsoft Office” to “Microsoft 365” which happened a few years ago.

What is ‘Microsoft 365’? What happened to ‘Office 365’?
Microsoft 365 ads appearing in Office 2021
What happens if you miss your Microsoft 365 payment?

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