Some improvements to Office 365 subscriptions
Office 365 Home Premium subscription currently lets you install Office software on up to five computers in a household as well as get some ‘bonuses’ like an hour of Skype calling time and 20GB of Skydrive space. However control of those installs and the 20GB cloud storage is only available to the original subscribers Microsoft account.
From December 2013 (no date has yet been given) the subscription purchaser can share their subscription with four other household members. Each person has their own Microsoft account which can control or get Office installations from the five licenses allowed under Home Premium. This sounds great but perhaps not all households want to let each member grab an Office install license without the permission of the original buyer. We’ll have to wait and see how this works.
There are also changes to the 20GB of Skydrive storage bonus. At present only the purchasers Microsoft account can access the extra cloud storage. With the December 2013 change, each household member gets their own 20GB of storage. In effect boosting the entire household Skydrive storage to 100GB (i.e 20GB for each of five household members).
Note: some commentators have interpreted Microsoft’s announcement incorrectly to mean that each household gets 20GB of Skydrive that can be allocated across up to five household members.
Microsoft has confirmed that each household members Microsoft account, once linked to a Home Premium subscription will get their own 20GB of Skydrive space.
For the record, here’s Microsoft’s announcement of the Home Premium changes – strangely buried in a press release about the company’s otherwise uninspiring ‘Get it done Day’ promotion:
New sharing updates to Office 365 Home Premium. Starting next month, Office 365 Home Premium subscribers can share some of their subscription benefits with up to four members of their household. Each household member can use any of the available installs on their own PCs, Macs or mobile devices, get an additional 20 GB of SkyDrive storage, and manage their own installs from their My Account page.
Enterprise
Enterprise subscribers also get a bonus — Microsoft’s Yammer is now included in Enterprise subscriptions plan E3 or better.
