Microsoft 365 is my favorite Microsoft product.

Although Windows is Microsoft’s premier product for consumers in terms of marketing and general market awareness, it is not my favorite Microsoft product. That title goes to Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365), the company’s cloud-based subscription service that gives you access to Office apps and more for a recurring cost.

I’ve been a Microsoft 365 family subscriber for a few years now and it’s probably the only Microsoft product I’ve ever regretted purchasing. There are several reasons for this and I’ll walk through some of them in this piece today to make it easier for readers who are on the fence to decide whether Microsoft 365 is worth their money.

For starters, Microsoft 365 gives you the latest version of Office apps like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, and more at all times. You don’t have to worry about updates at all, they are handled directly by the Redmond tech dev and the update process is also smooth. This is in stark contrast to one-time Office purchases like Office 2021 where you just get the version you paid for with some security updates, but no feature updates.

Speaking of feature updates, these are regularly rolled out to Microsoft 365. If you read Neowin actively, you’ve probably seen our monthly roundup articles of the latest capabilities added to Office apps. Some of the new features are really useful for me and I’m sure there’s always something of interest to someone considering the updates are plentiful. It even includes cloud-enabled capabilities that are not available in the offline or LTSC versions of Office.

It’s also worth noting that I have yet to experience major bugs in Office apps. This applies to other Microsoft software that I use such as Windows, Edge, Teams, Power BI Desktop, Visual Studio, etc. I’m not saying that these software are bug-ridden, nor am I saying that the Office apps are completely. Bug-free What I’m emphasizing is that Office apps are far less likely to have bugs for me than other Microsoft software, resulting in a better overall experience.

Another benefit I love about my Microsoft 365 subscription is the OneDrive cloud storage bundle. If you buy a family plan, you can share your subscription between up to six people and each of them gets 1TB of OneDrive storage. For me, this is plenty of storage and means I can save all my important files like photos, videos, documents, etc. to the cloud without a second thought. I’m nowhere near worrying about running out of storage usage even though I use it comfortably. It’s also important to point out that OneDrive competes with Dropbox, Google One, and other cloud storage plans, but the fact that it’s bundled with Microsoft 365 means it’s not a direct competitor to any of them. Is. Personally, this gives me the best bang for the buck as I am also an active user of Office apps.

This also leads to the biggest benefit of the Microsoft 365 Family plan, which is the ability to share your subscription with other people. This results in a lower cost per person and each person in my plan pays their share directly to me at the end of each billing period, which means I only have to pay for my share of the plan.

Finally, and some may disagree with me here, but I prefer the recurring subscription model for Microsoft 365 rather than the one-time license payment of Office LTSC. Not only does this mean that I get regular updates, but also that I pay a relatively low price at the start of the billing period and then don’t have to consider it until the second year (I have the annual billing option). I use).

Microsoft has done a great move in this regard that the price of Microsoft 365 in my country Pakistan is apparently not in terms of purchasing power and good economy. For example, Microsoft 365 family costs $99.99/year in the US, which would translate to PKR 23,000/year at today’s exchange rate but Microsoft charges me PKR 15,000/year. This is a huge reduction and makes it really easy for me to continue paying for Microsoft 365 every year. I’m a fan of regional pricing companies. Some of our avid readers may remember me breaking the story that Valve did the same for Steam five years ago. This initiative seems to have been very successful and popular, which is why it is still active.

I hope Microsoft continues to improve Microsoft 365, but I am a total fan of the work it has done on the software so far, along with all the benefits that come with it, such as cloud storage, cloud-powered capabilities, regular feature updates, and cost-effectiveness of subscription plans.

You may have noticed that when I said that Microsoft 365 is my favorite Microsoft product and compared it to other software I’ve used, I didn’t compare it to the hardware category. This is because I don’t believe Microsoft’s Surface line offers me the best bang for the buck, HoloLens isn’t really for consumers, I don’t have much time for gaming so Xbox and Game Pass. are currently out of the equation. , and Windows Phone is dead. Microsoft 365 is the clear winner for me and I don’t think any other product comes close.

Do you use Microsoft 365? do you like it? What is your favorite Microsoft 365 product? Let us know in the comments section below!