Microsoft Office 2016 officially launched

At an event in New Delhi, Microsoft has launched the Office 2016 apps across Windows, Android and iOS platforms.

Chanter said Office 2016’s embedded collaboration features would be a huge differentiator for Microsoft’s user experience.

It is a version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite, replacing both Office 2013 and Office for Mac 2011. Outlook 2016 will now feature “quick search” that automatically moves low priority mails to a different folder to make things easy for you.

Skype in-app integration across the applications enables users to talk, screen share, video chat and IM directly from the documents.

In addition, there is the new Office 365 Planner that helps teams organize work and create new detailed plans from a dedicated app that will hit the systems of Office 365 First Release customers next quarter. Users can create public and private groups with a shared calendar, inbox and OneNote notebook. With this offer, an Office 365 Personal subscription will cost just $35, compared to $399 for Office Professional 2016 that includes the same set of apps. “Planner’s visual dashboards and email notifications help keep everyone informed on the overall progress of their initiative”, Koenigsbauer said. Previously this was only available to Office 365 customers. GigJam is an unprecedented new way for teams to accomplish tasks and transform business processes by breaking down the barriers between devices, apps and people. Also added was multi-factor authentication. The usage of office will be more simple and user friendly with this update.

All they have to do is use the built-in Get Office app integrated in Windows 10 to benefit from the offer, Myerson explained.

Later this month, Microsoft will also release significant updates to OneDrive for Business, including a new sync client for Windows and Mac.

The global release of Microsoft Office 2016 is today. For Office 2016, Microsoft is incorporating numerous collaboration features the company has been honing in its Web-based Office apps into the client applications.

Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told us people tend to take Office for granted.

Whether you opt for the single, one-off payment, or a rolling subscription, Office 2016 is available for Mac users too – it will be interesting to see how many Apple users can be converted to using software made by their old enemy.