Photo (left to right): Ananthram Balakrishnan, Business Group Lead, Apps Services and Marketing, Microsoft Malaysia; with Bruce Howe, General Manager, Consumer Channels Group, Microsoft Malaysia.
On our previous piece about the release of ‘Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac’, we’ve mentioned that ‘Office 2016 for Windows’ is still in Public Preview, with the general availability (GA) slated for fall 2015. That GA date was September 22nd, when the main variant of Office 2016 is released for the masses, available in 40 languages, and supporting Windows 7 or newer. Office 2016 for commercial customers will only be ready early next year. Office 365 subscribers can already download the copy of Office 2016 as part of their subscription, and the automatic updates for consumers and small businesses should already begin rolling out this month.
However, Office 2016 is also available as a one-time purchase (for PCs and Macs), with what Microsoft calls a “perpetual license”. This box copy of Office wasn’t available in Malaysia until this month, which is what today’s Microsoft Office celebration event is all about. There are over 330 participating retail outlets across Malaysia that carry Office 2016 products, where in select outlets consumers can participate in a free, one-hour Office 2016 workshop, not to mention visit the in-store Answer Desk.
To cut to the chase, the estimated retail pricing for Office 365 Personal is at RM219.99, and Office 365 Home at RM299.99. For a one-time purchase of Office 2016 with a perpetual license, Office Home & Student 2016 is priced at RM449.99, and Office Home & Business 2016 at RM1,099. If you’ve been keeping track, all the prices have been increased:
- Office 365 Personal — now RM219.99 (was RM189.99 last year)
- Office 365 Home — now RM299.99 (was RM249.99 during Office 365 launch in 2013
- Office Home & Student 2016 — now RM449.99 (Office 2013 was RM339.99)
- Office Home & Business 2016 — now RM1,099 (Office 2013 was RM869.00)
Besides having a modern redesign across all platforms including Windows, Windows 10 Phone, iOS, and Android, there are also a few key features to expect from Office 2016. The most notable is none other than the co-authoring feature where users could see others’ edits as they make them in Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote. In Word, you can even see what your collaborators are typing in real-time.
Other intelligent features include Tell Me where by typing intuitively in the text box, you can find the commands you need, and in the same box also allows Smart Lookup which brings insights from the web right to the document you’re working on. Later in November, Cortana will also be integrated with Office 365 to help with tasks such as meeting preparation, plus Outlook integration. Office 365 Groups are now part of Outlook 2016 on the desktop, where it is also available as an app on mobile. Security has been updated too, with Data Loss Prevention and Multi-factor Authentication.
Microsoft Office 2016 is not just the applications you see in the chart above. It also plays nice with GigJam, a new collaboration app. It has new updates to OneDrive for Business, not to mention other business apps like Skype for Business, Delve, Yammer, Sway, et cetera.
Back to the local launch. Microsoft Malaysia is organizing a contest for you to stand a chance at winning prizes, available only at 13 stores. These promotions have started on October 10th and 11th, and will continue on two other weekends on October 17th and 18th, and October 24th and 25th. These 13 stores are listed below. I’ll also leave you with an infographic by Microsoft to promote the recent “New World of Work” survey.
For more information visit https://products.office.com/en-my/ or go directly to the online store here: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msapac/en_GB/cat/categoryID.70179800/mktp.MY/Currency.MYR.
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