Technology is a large part of what gets us up every morning here at PTG (shocking, I know!). Given our propensity to get excited about new phones, laptops, or apps, it’s probably no surprise to you that the roll-out of Office 2016 has us pretty excited.
But, why should you care? You may not get as excited as we do, and that’s okay. There are a few good reasons to check out Office 2016 even if you aren’t an avid technologist.
It’s part of Office 365
If you are using an Office 365 subscription that includes the Office client download, you get it for free (E3, Business Premium, Midsized Business and Office Pro Plus plans). Hopefully, you already know that if you are using these plans you get the full install of Office on up to 5 PCs/Macs and 5 mobile devices. If not, start downloading.
This also means that you don’t have to pay for the upgrade to 2016 -- you get it no matter what. We've written, in more detail, about the differences between Office 2016 stand alone and as part of Office 365 before.
It’s mobile friendly
Microsoft has upped their mobile game - and not just on Windows Phone. Microsoft was definitely a laggard on the mobile front. Android makes up the vast majority of mobile users today with over 1.3 billion Androids in the world. To put that into perspective, there are 1.4 billion PC users in the world.
Microsoft recognizes this and the mobile versions are as full-featured as their desktop counterparts. You can compose and format a document in Word (or a presentation in Powerpoint, a spreadsheet in Excel, etc) from your phone. You can send that doc to a co-worker and your formatting, comments and annotations will be carried over to him or her.
(Outside of Office 2016, Microsoft has a few other mobile apps we love - like Outlook and Office Lens).
It’s cloud friendly
The new Office is also cloud friendly. You can now co-author in most of the desktop applications. This has long been a feature of the Web versions but is making its way to the desktop versions too. This means that multiple people can work on the same document (like a proposal) without having to compile several versions down the road. We like to call it "one version of the truth."
Office 2016 also makes files easier to share than 2010 or 2013 with a sharing button is in the upper right-hand corner. Any files you share are automatically posted into OneDrive and available on all your devices and to your colleagues. And while OneDrive is included with 1TB of storage in your subscription, if you prefer to use Dropbox, there is direct integration with Office 365 and Dropbox.
These are just some of the exciting features of Office 2016 that will help make you more productive. If you aren’t sure if you have Office 2016 included in your subscription or would like to add it to your subscription, just let us know!
