Microsoft has announced its new Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions which are designed to replace and enhance the existing Office 365 consumer plans. Current Office 365 subscriptions will become Microsoft 365 subscriptions at no additional charge as of April 21.
Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans will be available from April 21 worldwide, at the starting price of Rs 4,199 a year. Microsoft 365 Personal costs Rs 4199 a year. For the best value, a family of up to six people can use Microsoft 365 Family for Rs 5299 a year.
The new Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans will include premium desktop Office apps, 1 TB of OneDrive Cloud Storage per person, 60 Skype minutes for calling mobile phones and landlines, advanced security features to protect users from malware and phishing attacks, ongoing technical support, plus all the new features and benefits.
In addition, Microsoft unveiled two new Microsoft 365 experiences that will be available for preview in the coming months. A new ‘Family Safety’ App is designed to keep families safe across the digital and physical worlds. Microsoft also previewed new features coming to Microsoft Teams for users’ personal life. With these new features, users can connect, stay organized, and collaborate with family and friends. They will be able to connect in group chats, make video calls, collaborate over shared to-do lists, assign tasks to specific people and coordinate schedules, as well as share photos and videos all in one place.
New features available with Microsoft 365 are mentioned below:
1. AI-Powered Microsoft Editor: To help people put their best foot forward at home and at work, Microsoft Editor – an AI-powered service available in more than 20 languages is now accessible across Word and Outlook.com, and as a standalone Browser extension for Microsoft EDGE and Google Chrome. Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers have access to advanced grammar and style refinements such as rewrite suggestions and additional style critiques to allow greater clarity and conciseness.
2. Presenter Coach Features in PowerPoint: An AI-powered Presenter that helps correct monotone pitch and refine speeches. This will be available as a free preview, and then eventually only to Microsoft 365 subscribers.
3. PowerPoint Designer: This feature effectively boosts creativity, such as transforming text into a beautiful timeline, or even auto-generated slide layouts. Microsoft is providing Microsoft 365 subscribers with exclusive access to over 8,000 beautiful images and 175 looping videos from Getty Images, plus 300 new fonts, 2,800 new icons and 200+ new premium templates to create high-impact and visually appealing documents.
4. Managing Finances with Money in Excel: A new solution for Microsoft 365 subscribers that help users seamlessly manage, track and analyze their money and spending all in one place through a secure and simple process that connects to the user’s bank and credit card accounts, including major retail banks and community credit unions,
5. New Data Types and Smart Templates in Excel: This presents a different and less time-consuming way to interact with data, providing deeper meaning for over 100 topics. Microsoft 365 subscribers have exclusive access to the over 100 new data types powered by Wolfram Alpha.
6. Organizing Time Across Work and Life with Outlook: New features in Outlook on the web help users manage all commitments, across work and life, in one place. With these new features, they can link their personal calendar to their work calendar to show their real availability, while still maintaining their privacy.
7. Connections with Family and Friends with Skype and Microsoft Teams: Skype has seen an increase in usage with 40 million people using it daily, up 70% month over month and, we are seeing a 220% increase in Skype to Skype calling minutes month over month. To help people get connected even faster, Microsoft recently introduced a new feature in Skype called Meet Now, that allows users to easily create video meetings in as little as three clicks for free, with no sign ups or downloads required.
8. Protecting Families in the Physical and Digital Worlds with Microsoft Family Safety: This application empowers families to help protect their loved ones by giving them the tools and insights to discuss healthier habits online and in the real world. The new Microsoft Family Safety app is the only app that manages screen time across Windows PCs, Android, and Xbox.