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Microsoft 365 (also known as Microsoft 365 Copilot, and formerly known as Office 365) is a line of subscription services offered by Microsoft that adds to and includes the Microsoft Office product line. The brand encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs formerly marketed under the name Microsoft Office (including applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook on Windows, macOS, mobile devices, and the web, and enterprise products and services associated with these products such as Exchange Server, SharePoint, and Viva Engage. All Microsoft 365 plans include automatic updates to their respective software at no additional charge, as opposed to conventional licenses for these programs – where new versions require the purchase of a new license.

Microsoft announced Office 365 on October 19, 2010, beginning with a private beta with various organizations, leading to a public beta on April 18, 2011, and reaching general availability on June 28, 2011, as a successor to Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), originally aimed at corporate users. With the release of Microsoft Office 2013, Microsoft expanded Office 365 to include new plans aimed at different types of businesses, along with new plans aimed at general consumers, including benefits tailored towards Microsoft consumer services such as OneDrive (whose integration with Office was a major feature of the 2013 suite).

In the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017, Microsoft 365 revenue overtook that of conventional license sales of Microsoft Office software for the first time. On April 21, 2020, Microsoft announced that Office 365 would be merged to launch Microsoft 365.

Following Microsoft's 2022 Ignite event, it was announced that the Microsoft 365 brand would start to replace the Office brand both on Office.com's website and the rest of the suite apps, starting in November 2022.

On January 16, 2025, Microsoft 365 officially rebranded to Microsoft 365 Copilot following Microsoft's push to Copilot's further AI integration within the subscription service.

History

As Office 365

Microsoft first announced Office 365 on October 19, 2010, beginning with a private beta with various organizations, leading into a public beta on April 18, 2011, and reaching general availability on June 28, 2011. Facing growing competition from Google's similar service Google Apps, Microsoft designed the Office 365 platform to "bring together" its existing online services (such as the Business Productivity Online Suite) into "an always-up-to-date cloud service" incorporating Exchange Server (for e-mail), SharePoint (for internal social networking, collaboration, and a public web site), and Lync (now Skype for Business) (for communication, VoIP, and conferencing). Plans were initially launched for small businesses and enterprises; the small business plan offered Exchange e-mail, SharePoint Online, Lync Online, web hosting via SharePoint, and the Office Web Apps, with the enterprise plan also adding per-user licenses for the Office 2010 Professional Plus software and 24/7 phone support. Following the official launch of the service, Business Productivity Online Suite customers were given 12 months to plan and perform their migration from BPOS to the Office 365 platform.

With the release of Office 2013, an updated version of the Office 365 platform was launched on February 27, 2013, expanding Office 365 to include new plans aimed at different types of businesses, along with new plans aimed at general consumers, including benefits tailored towards Microsoft consumer services such as OneDrive (whose integration with Office was a major feature of the 2013 suite).^{[citation needed]} The server components were updated to their respetive 2013 versions, and Microsoft expanded the Office 365 servic with new plans, such as Small Business Premium, Midsize Premium, and ProPlus.^{[citation needed]} A new Office 365 Home Premium plan aimed at home users offers access to the Office 2013 suite for up to five computers, along with expanded OneDrive storage and 60 minutes of Skype calls monthly. The plan is aimed at mainstream computers, especially those who want to install Office on multiple computers.^{[citation needed]} A University plan was introduced, targeted at post-secondary students. With these new offerings, Microsoft began to offer prepaid Office 365 subscriptions through retail outlets alongside the normal, perpetually licensed editions of Office 2013 (which are only licensed for use on one computer and do not receive feature updates).^[1][2]

On March 19, 2013, Microsoft detailed its plans to provide integration with the enterprise social networking platform Yammer (which they had acquired in 2012) for Office 365, such as the ability to use a single sign-on between the two services, shared feeds and document aggregation, and the ability to entirely replace the SharePoint news feed and social functionality with Yammer. The ability to provide a link to a Yammer network from an Office 365 portal was introduced in June 2013, with heavier integration (such as a Yammer app for SharePoint and single sign-on) to be introduced in July 2013.

On July 8, 2013, Microsoft unveiled Power BI, a suite of business intelligence and self-serve data mining tools for Office 365, to be released later in the year. Power BI is primarily incorporated into Excel, allowing users to use the Power Query tool to create spreadsheets and graphs using public and private data, and also perform geovisualization with Bing Maps data using the Power Map tool (previously available as a beta plug-in known as GeoFlow). Users will also be able to access and publish reports, and perform natural language queries on data. As a limited-time offer for certain markets (but notably excluding the U.S.), Microsoft also announced that those who purchased an Office 365 Home Premium or University subscription before September 28, 2013, would receive a free one-year Xbox Live Gold subscription.

In March 2014, Microsoft announced that it would rename the "Home Premium" plan to "Home", and add a new "Personal" plan for single users; these new options officially launched on April 15, 2014.

In June 2014, the amount of OneDrive storage offered to Office 365 subscribers was increased to 1 terabyte from 20 GB. On October 27, 2014, Microsoft announced that Office 365 subscribers would receive "unlimited" OneDrive storage. Due to abuse and a general reduction in storage options implemented by Microsoft, the 1 TB cap was reinstated in November 2015.

In June 2016, Microsoft made Planner available for general release. It is considered to be a competitor to Trello and other agile team collaboration cloud services.

In April 2017, Microsoft announced that when Office 2016 loses mainstream support on October 13, 2020, access to OneDrive for Business and Office 365-hosted servers for Skype for Business will become unavailable to those who are not using Office 365 ProPlus or Office perpetual in mainstream support.

As Microsoft 365

For businesses

The "Microsoft 365" brand was first introduced at Microsoft Inspire in July 2017 as an enterprise subscription product, succeeding the "Secure Productive Enterprise" services released in 2016, and combining Windows 10 Enterprise with Office 365 Business Premium, and the Enterprise Mobility + Security suite including Advanced Threat Analytics, Azure Active Directory, Azure Information Protection, Cloud App Security, and Microsoft Intune. Microsoft 365 is sold via Microsoft and its cloud services reseller network.

Consumer launch

On March 30, 2020, Microsoft announced that the consumer plans of Office 365 would be rebranded as "Microsoft 365" (a brand also used by Microsoft for an enterprise subscription bundle of Windows, Office 365, and security services) on April 21, 2020, succeeding existing consumer plans of Office 365.^[3]

It is a superset of the existing Office 365 products and benefits, positioned towards "life", productivity, and families, including the Microsoft Office suite, 1 TB of additional OneDrive storage and access to Personal Vault, and 60 minutes of Skype calls per month. Under the brand, Microsoft also added access to its collaboration platform Teams (which also adds additional features designed around family use), and a premium tier of Microsoft Family Safety. Microsoft also announced plans to offer trial offers of third-party services for Microsoft 365 subscribers, with companies such as Adobe (Creative Cloud Photography), Blinkist, CreativeLive, Experian, and Headspace having partnered. Microsoft 365 Personal and Family succeeded the Office 365 Personal and Home subscriptions, with no change in pricing.^{[citation needed]}

Office 365 for small- and medium-sized businesses was also renamed Microsoft 365, with Office 365 Business and ProPlus becoming "Microsoft 365 Apps for business" and "Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise", Office 365 Business Essentials becoming "Microsoft 365 Business Basic", and Office 365 Business Premium becoming "Microsoft 365 Business Standard" (with the existing Microsoft 365 Business product becoming "Microsoft 365 Business Premium"). The Office 365 brand remains in use for its enterprise, education, healthcare, and government plans. Microsoft stated that "over the last several years, our cloud productivity offering has grown well beyond what people traditionally think of as 'Office'", citing examples such as Forms, Planner, Stream, and Teams.^[4]

On October 13, 2022, Microsoft announced that it would be phasing out the Microsoft Office brand, in favor of branding all products under the Microsoft 365 name. This change takes effect for Office.com in November 2022, followed by the Office mobile apps in January 2023. The Microsoft Office brand will still be used for legacy products, including subscription products still carrying the "Office 365" name since the previous Microsoft 365 rebranding, and the "on-premises"/perpetually licensed Office 2021.^[5][2]

In November 2024, Microsoft expanded the use of Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps to Microsoft 365 Personal and Home subscribers in Asia-Pacific markets, previously exclusive to Microsoft's Copilot Pro subscription. Microsoft subsequently increased the price of its consumer subscriptions to accommodate the addition of Copilot features. In December 2024, Microsoft announced that the Microsoft 365 app would be rebranded as the Microsoft 365 Copilot App in an effort to highlight the integration of Copilot features for Microsoft 365 Personal and Home subscriptions. The logo was rebranded to the Copilot logo with an "M365" tag.

In March 2025, Microsoft announced that it would bring Copilot for OneDrive to Microsoft 365 Personal and Home subscriptions. Copilot for OneDrive allows consumers to use Copilot to interact with their files stored in OneDrive.^[6]

Software and services

Desktop applications

The Microsoft 365 desktop applications (formerly marketed as Microsoft Office) are primarily used on personal computers running Windows, and are distributed as part of the Microsoft 365 subscription. They are installed using a "click-to-run" system, which allows users to begin using the applications almost instantaneously, while files are downloaded in the background. Updates to the software are installed automatically, covering both security and feature updates. These applications were one of the core components of the initial Office 365 service.^[1] If the user's subscription lapses, the applications enter a read-only mode where editing functionality is disabled; full functionality is restored once a new subscription is purchased and activated.

Although there are still "on-premises" or "perpetual" releases of Office released on a three-year cycle, these versions do not receive new features or access to new cloud-based services as they are released on Microsoft 365.

All of these applications, excluding Access and Publisher, are also available on macOS:

• Microsoft Word, a word processor
• Microsoft Excel, a spreadsheet editor
• Microsoft PowerPoint, a presentation program
• Microsoft OneNote, a notetaking progrma
• Microsoft Outlook, a personal information manager (PIM) that includes an email client, calendar, task manager, and address book
• Microsoft Publisher, a desktop publishing app
• Microsoft Access, a database management system

Mobile and web applications

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are available as mobile and web apps, usable for free with limitations, although they do not contain all of the functionality of the desktop versions. The mobile apps were originally limited to Office 365 subscribers, but basic editing and document creation have since been made free for personal use. An active Microsoft 365 subscription is still required to unlock certain advanced editing features, use the apps on devices with screens larger than 10.1 inches, or use the apps for commercial purposes. In February 2020, Microsoft introduced a new Microsoft Office app that integrates Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, replacing the previous separate apps for each.

Microsoft Outlook for mobile is derived from the apps Acompli and Sunrise Calendar, which were acquired by Microsoft and discontinued.

Online services and apps

Some Microsoft 365 online services are usable without a subscription, but with limitations such as advertising and lower storage limits.

• Outlook.com, an online webmail service originally launched as Hotmail, also includes a calendar and an address book
• OneDrive, an online file storage service
• Microsoft Copilot, a generative AI assistant
• Office on the web, cloud-based versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
• Microsoft Teams, a business communication platform
• To-Do, a task management app
• Clipchamp, an online video editor

Enterprise servers and services

Business and enterprise-oriented plans for Microsoft/Office 365 offer access to cloud-hosted server platforms on a software-as-a-service basis, including Exchange, Skype for Business, Microsoft Dictate (speech recognition), and Office on the web. Through SharePoint's OneDrive for Business functionality (formerly known as SharePoint MySites and SkyDrive Pro, and distinct from the consumer-oriented OneDrive service), each user also receives 1 TB of online storage. Certain plans also include unlimited personal cloud storage per user.

Microsoft 365 services can be configured through an online portal; users can be added manually, imported from a CSV file, or set up for single sign-on with a local Active Directory using Active Directory Federation Services. More advanced setup and features requires the use of PowerShell scripts.

• Exchange Server, a mail and calendaring server
• SharePoint, a web-based collaborative platform. It is primarily sold as a document management and storage system, but the product is highly configurable, and usage varies substantially among organizations.
• Microsoft Power Platform, a line of business intelligence, app development, and app connectivity applications.
• Viva Engage, an enterprise social network service.

Security

In December 2011, Microsoft announced that the Office 365 platform was now compliant with the ISO/IEC 27001 security standards, the European Union's Data Protection Directive (through the signing of model clauses), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act for health care environments in the United States. At the same time, Microsoft also unveiled a new "Trust Center" portal, containing further information on its privacy policies and security practices for the service. In May 2012, Microsoft announced that Office 365 was now compliant with the Federal Information Security Management Act: compliance with the act would now allow Office 365 to be used by U.S. government agencies.

In spite of claiming to comply with European data protection standards and in spite of existing Safe Harbor agreements, Microsoft has admitted that it will not refrain from handing over data stored on its European servers to US authorities under the Patriot Act.

In Finland, the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority has warned Microsoft 365 users of phishing and break-ins, diverting millions of euros to criminals.

In July 2019, the German state of Hesse outlawed the use of Office 365 in educational institutions, citing privacy risks.^[7]

In December 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce was breached via Office 365. The attackers were able to access staff emails for several months.^[8]

A July 1, 2021, cybersecurity advisory from British (NCSC) and American (NSA, FBI, CISA) security agencies warned of a Russian (GRU) brute-force campaign from mid-2019 to the present (July 2021) that focused a "significant amount" of activity on Microsoft Office 365 cloud services.

On November 10, 2023, IT news portal Heise online disclosed that "if you try out the new Outlook, you risk transferring your IMAP and SMTP credentials of mail accounts and all your emails to Microsoft servers."

Plans

This section's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (June 2017)

Microsoft 365 is available in a number of different subscription plans aimed at different needs and market segments, providing different sets of features at different price points. These include:

• Personal: Includes access to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft OneNote, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Publisher & Microsoft Access for home/non-commercial use on one computer (PC or Mac) plus access to premium features on one tablet (Android, iOS or Windows RT full Windows counts as a computer) or phone. Additional benefits include 1 TB of additional OneDrivestorage and 60 minutes of Skype international calls per month (subject to area). A version of Personal purchased on a discounted four-year plan, known as Microsoft 365 University, allowing use on two devices by one user, is available for those in post-secondary institutions. Microsoft has also offered Microsoft 365 subscriptions to students of institutions who have licensed Office software for their faculty.
• Home (formerly Home Premium): Aimed at mainstream consumers and families; same as Personal, but for use on up to six devices by up to six users.
• Business Essentials (formerly Small Business): Offers access to hosted Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync services, and Office Online for the web-based versions of Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.
• Business: Offers desktop apps for both Mac and PCs for up to five computers per user, without online services Exchange, SharePoint and Lync Online.
• Business Premium (formerly Small Business Premium): A combination of Business and Business Essentials plans.
• ProPlus: Offers access to the Office 2016 Professional Plus applications on up to five devices per user.
• Midsize Business: Aimed at businesses with 10-300 employees. Offered access to the Office 2013 applications from ProPlus, plus hosted Exchange, SharePoint, and Skype for Business services. No longer available.
• Enterprise: Intended for use in enterprise environments. Offers access to all Office applications, hosted Exchange, SharePoint, and Skype for Business services, plus enterprise-specific legal compliance features and support.
• Microsoft 365 operated by 21Vianet: Microsoft has licensed 21Vianet to provide Microsoft 365 services to its China customers. Microsoft does not operate Microsoft 365 in China instead 21Vianet does. The service differs in features from the service offered elsewhere.

Comparison

Comparison of features per licensing plan

Feature	Office Online	Business Essentials	Enterprise E1	Personal	Home	Business	Business Premium	Enterprise E3	Enterprise E4 (discontinued)	Enterprise E5	Exchange Online Plan 1
Subscription
Payment terms	Free	Per user per month	Per user per month	Monthly or annually	Monthly or annually	Per user per month	Per user per month	Per user per month	Per user per month	Per user per month	Per user per month
Number of users licensed	Unlimited	300	Unlimited	1	5	300	300	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
OneDrive storage per user	5 GB	1 TB	1 TB	1 TB	1 TB	1 TB	1 TB	unlimited	1 TB	unlimited	None
Software
Word	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Excel	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
PowerPoint	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
OneNote	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Outlook	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Publisher *	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Access *	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Skype for Business	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Planner	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
InfoPath *	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Office Online apps	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	View attachments only
Teams	No	Q1 2017	Q1 2017	No	No	No	Q1 2017	Q1 2017	Q1 2017	Yes	No
Services
Exchange Server	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Skype for Business Server	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Yammer Enterprise	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Public website	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
File storage and sharing	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
SharePoint	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Active Directory integration	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Site mailboxes	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Office mobile apps	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Advanced email	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Email storage per user	15 GB	50 GB	50 GB	50 GB	50 GB	none	50 GB	100 GB	Unknown	100 GB	50 GB
eDiscovery Center	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Self-Service-Business Intelligence	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Voicemail	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Custom Domain	Unknown	Yes	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Yes	Yes	Unknown	Yes	Yes
* For Windows only.

Reception

TechRadar gave the 2013 update of Microsoft 365 a 4.5 out of 5, praising its administration interfaces for being accessible to users with any level of expertise, the seamless integration of SkyDrive Pro into the Office 2013 desktop applications, and the service as a whole for being suitable in small business environments, while still offering "powerful" options for use in larger companies (such as data loss protection and the ability to integrate with a local Active Directory instance). However, the service was severely criticized for how it handled its 2013 update for existing users, and its lack of integration with services such as Skype and Viva Engage.

In the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017, Office 365 revenue exceeded that of conventional license sales of Microsoft Office software for the first time.

References

External links

• Microsoft 365 at Microsoft
  • Office 365 Login
  • View previous versions of Office files at Microsoft Support
• Microsoft 365 at Facebook
• Microsoft 365 at Twitter
  • Microsoft 365 Status (for service incidents)
• Microsoft 365 at YouTube
• Microsoft 365 at Wikipedia