Microsoft have announced that from 21st April they will be changing some of their Office 365 subscription naming schemes.
- Office 365 Business Essentials will become Microsoft 365 Business Basic
- Office 365 Business Premium will become Microsoft 365 Business Standard
- Microsoft 365 Business will become Microsoft 365 Business Premium
- Office 365 Business will become Microsoft 365 Apps for Business
- Office 365 ProPlus will become Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise
As someone that refers to the old naming scheme quite frequently, I’m sure this change will be confusing to start with but over time we will get used to the new subscription names.
According to Microsoft’s Blog post, the name changes are because they believe that these packages “go well beyond what customers traditionally think of as office”. Which I personally believe is true!
I expect as Office 365 grows to include more software over the next few months and years, we will see the subscription names change frequently.
As it stands the following Office 365 subscription names will not be changing in April:
- Office 365 for Enterprise
- Office 365 E1
- Office 365 E3
- Office 365 E5
- Office 365 for Firstline Workers
- Office 365 F1
- Office 365 for Education
- Office 365 A1
- Office 365 A3
- Office 365 A5
- Office 365 for Government
- Office 365 G1
- Office 365 G3
- Office 365 G5
Anyone who currently uses Office 365 Business, Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium, or Microsoft 365 Business plans do not need to take additional action. The name changes will take place automatically and the end users will not see any downtime, Microsoft have also stated that “There are no price or feature changes” to these plans, during this name changing process.
Microsoft have hinted at some new innovations they will be adding in the coming months, and I am excited to see what they bring to the table.
In need of some IT Support or even just some friendly advice?
We are an independent IT Support and Services company based in Crawley, West Sussex. Since 1990 we've been offering IT Support to small and medium sized businesses all over the South East.
Call us on 01293 562 700 or send us a message.
Network Engineer
Tristan is a Network Engineer at Optima Systems. He has always had a keen interest in IT, studying throughout School at The Weald, in Billingshurst, before moving onto an Extended IT Diploma at Chichester College. He joined Optima in January 2020. More about Tristan