Microsoft has revealed that the cloud version of its Microsoft Office set, Microsoft 365will be transferred to one desktop and mobile application.
Movement, announced (opens in a new tab) At the company’s Ignite annual event, the Office.com web portal will end in November 2022, and existing Microsoft Office desktop and mobile applications will be retired in January 2023.
The move will affect all Microsoft 365 users in corporate, education, and personal subscription packages.
New features of Microsoft 365
Microsoft quickly cleared up any confusion about the change, confirming that Microsoft Office will continue to exist as a standalone product that users will be able to purchase right away.
Existing users won’t even have to lift a finger as existing Office apps will automatically update to the new app and users will keep their account configurations.
While the move to one app appears to be purely Microsoft’s cloud preservation Office software offerings well organized for users, he also used the announcement to tease a number of new features that will be coming to existing Microsoft 365 applications before the move.
For example, Microsoft 365 now offers all users a My Content Hub – a central location for all content created or shared by someone. The feature was previously only available to business customers.
A custom tagging system has also been made available to business users that allows them to organize content as they see fit, and the new channel will recommend content based on factors such as the people they are working with and what they are working on.
Many of these features are basics that are unlikely to be broken. For example, the content recommendation feed and the My Content hub are variations of features that are already available with Google workspace.
With the new Microsoft 365 app, the company bypassed the problem of encouraging users to adopt a new way to access the service by simply removing all the old ones.
It’s a smart business move that will surely clear up any confusion about what Microsoft 365 is and what it can do for all types of users. Whether the application will actually be more convenient than the current offers remains to be seen.