Microsoft introduced yesterday a new Microsoft 365 app that will replace the all-in-one Office apps on Windows and mobile, as well as the office.com portal. These new Microsoft 365 apps are coming in November, but what Microsoft didn’t explicitly say as part of its various Ignite announcements yesterday is that the Microsoft 365 brand is actually taking over the decades-old Office brand.

“Office is becoming Microsoft 365”, Microsoft boldly says on the microsoft365.com landing page, which will be the home of the new Microsoft 365 web app. The same message is also visible on the Microsoft 365 landing page on microsoft.com, with an image showing Word, Outlook, Teams, and other Office apps gravitating around the new Microsoft 365 logo.

This branding change is a quite big deal: The Office brand has been around for decades, and everyone who has ever used a PC probably knows what Office is. Microsoft 365, however, is a new brand that Microsoft introduced just a couple of years ago. It pretty much replaced Office 365 for consumers, though Office 365 Enterprise subscriptions still exist.

In its FAQ about the new Microsoft 365 app, the company explains that “Microsoft 365 is our cloud-powered productivity platform that includes apps like Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, and so much more.” The new Microsoft 365 app, which will be free to use, will be the main entry point to the company’s productivity ecosystem for consumers and organizations.

In simple words, Microsoft 365 remains the Microsoft version of Google Workspace, and you’ll need a Microsoft 365 subscription to access premium apps and features. If Office is becoming Microsoft 365, as Microsoft says, nothing is actually really changing. However, the software giant is definitely going to de-emphasize the Office brand going forward.

In the same FAQ, Microsoft confirms that there are no changes to existing Office 365 subscription plans. Moreover, the company will continue to sell perpetual Office licenses such as Office 2021 to consumers and enterprise users who don’t want to pay for Office via a subscription.

Do you think the Microsoft 365 brand taking over the Office brand has been a long time coming? Or do you think this change could cause some unnecessary confusion? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Tagged with Ignite 2022, Microsoft 365, office, Office 365