What is the difference between Office 365 and Office 2016?

  • Thread starter Windows Central Question
  • Start date
W

Windows Central Question

Office 365 and Office 2016

not much of a noob but im finding this confusing. I will be purchasing a new laptop and it comes with Office 2013 (full) included. Having realised that Office 2016 was released a few days ago, i curtailed purchasing my laptop. as i have the option of not having office 2013 installed.
i also noted that there is office 365.
what is the difference between having an office 365 account and (purchasing) office 2016 seperately?
are they one in the same? or are they different in some way?
what are the benefits of each and the downfalls?
does it make any sense just getting office 2013 pre-installed? (its about 20usd difference with the purchase of the laptop)
any advice here would be much appreciated. thanks!
 

rhapdog

Retired Senior Ambassador
Aug 26, 2014
3,035
0
0
Visit site
Re: Office 365 and Office 2016

If you purchase Office 2016, then Office 2016 will always be yours, even once it has become outdated. You will get support and updates for Office 2016 for up to one year only, then no new updates or support.

If you get Office 365, it IS at this time Office 2016. If at anytime you stop paying for Office 365, you don't get to keep using it except in "read-only" mode after that. No more editing or saving.

As long as you keep your Office 365 subscription current, you will always have the most recent version and updates of Office. That means if there is ever an Office 2020 or 2040, as long as you're paying you get to continue getting the upgrades/updates.
 

noersetiawan

New member
Jun 27, 2014
514
0
0
Visit site
Easy, as you already said, Office 365 is subscription based, as long as you have your subscription current, you'll have latest version of Office, be it 2016, 2020, etc. along with a 1TB in OneDrive and free Skype minutes. Office as separate purchase is VERY expensive, a one year of Office365 you can get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access, for 5 peoples, and it's still CHEAPER than buying a Home Edition of one time buy Office Home (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote only). Office as one time purchase isn't available in mobile devices, it's either a free Office app with limited functionality or if your device is 10" or larger, you'll need subscription. I doubt your new PC included full Office though, check your local MS Store but here, you can buy at least 6 years worth of Office 365 with the price of one time purchase of Office 2016.
 

rhapdog

Retired Senior Ambassador
Aug 26, 2014
3,035
0
0
Visit site
Re: Office 365 and Office 2016

Just to add...office keeps asking for a 365 subscription on my mobile

Office 2013 is included in my pc for about $20 additional. What has me is that word/office on my L1020 keeps,asking me for a subscription!

Once Windows 10 Mobile becomes final and released, then Windows Phones will be able to use the Office Mobile without the subscription. W10M is not finished, so it hasn't been set up properly yet.

It's a real pain to be sure, but it's what you get with preview software (W10M), unfortunately. Hopefully it will all be ironed out soon.
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
323,274
Messages
2,243,559
Members
428,053
Latest member
JoshRos