Microsoft has announced ‘extras’ for Microsoft 365 Basic but we can’t see anything new that wasn’t promised over a year ago and delivered six months ago. It’s a just a simple PR stunt that worked.
The ‘Microsoft 365 Basic’ plan has just 100GB of OneDrive storage plus a 50GB Outlook.com mailbox for US$19.99 a year plus tax.
Let’s see what’s in this latest announcement:
- Ransomware detection and recovery
- Personal Vault
- Password protected and expiring sharing links
Which sounds great except there’s nothing new in the 28 March 2024 announcement.
All three features were promised in January 2023 when Microsoft 365 Basic was announced. It took another nine months for them to be added to the plan in September 2023. They aren’t really ‘extra’ because those features were promised from the start and they are standard for anyone with a paid OneDrive plan.
This ‘new’ announcement has nothing new, it’s just a restatement of what’s already in Microsoft 365 Basic. From Microsoft’s point of view, it worked. They got a lot of free publicity simply by pretending something was new or updated.
Microsoft 365 Basic might be worth it for anyone with an Outlook.com address because the plan boosts storage to a 50GB mailbox. For others, all you get is 100GB of OneDrive storage which isn’t a lot for US$20 a year.
The extra OneDrive space might be suitable for people with the ‘perpetual licence’ Microsoft Office (Office 2021, 2019 or soon Office 2024).
Microsoft 365 consumer or business users get 1TB of OneDrive space so they have no use for the Basic plan.
Microsoft 365 Basic finally gets all the security features
What’s in and out of the new Microsoft 365 Basic
