IT Support Brisbane

Office 2019 or Office 365? What’s best for your business?

Most businesses have been using Microsoft programs and operating systems for many years now. If anything, we rely on the Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, etc.) even more than we did years ago.

In recent years though, Microsoft has added even more products to Office. As a result, businesses now have a choice between the relatively new cloud-based Office 365 and the latest traditional Office version, Microsoft Office 2019. Hence, your business is faced with a choice, Office 365 or Office 2019.

Which one is best for your business? We will go over the benefits of each product respectively and which ones suit your business better.

What is Office 365?

Office 365 is a cloud-based version of the Office suite. Instead of purchasing a license, you pay a subscription (monthly or yearly). Office 365 gives you access to the standard office applications, and in the business version, there are some extra business-focused ones. The 365 suite is designed to offer the applications vital to running a business.

What is Office 2019?

Office 2019 is a stand-alone version of Office. It is a licensed product that charges a single fee for unlimited access. There is also a business version of Office 2019 called “Office Home and Business 2019”. It offers the essentials like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Your license is only for that version of Office and won’t be valid for the next version.

Benefits of Office 365

Microsoft Office 365 has a lot of helpful features. These one’s are those that are especially helpful for business and set it apart from Office 2019.

• Regular Updates: A benefit of paying a subscription rather than a license key for a specific version of a program is that you stay up to date as upgrades and improvements are added. Rather than having to go out an buy a license key for a newer version, the updates are applied to your applications as they come out, meaning you get the best user experience and security available.
• Collaboration: Because it’s a cloud-based platform, Office 365 allows multiple users to edit the same document at the same time. You can see the edits in real time so staff members can contribute to the same piece of work at the same time.
• Link files to emails: With Office 365 you can link to a file in the cloud instead of having to attach it in your email. This avoids a lot of the issues that can occur with large files and inboxes.
• Flexibility: A single Office 365 subscription allows you to access all its applications on multiple devices (up to 5). This means you can access and work on your files whilst on the move. You can also work from home on your own laptop.
• Switch between accounts: Using OneDrive, you can switch between your business and personal accounts with ease. This allows you to save storage and separate your personal files from those of the business.
• Self-de-cluttering inbox: Office 365 includes a clutter inbox for your OutLook inbox. With this, you can train OutLook to move less important messages you the clutter folder automatically. From there you can either read them later or delete them.

Benefits of Office 2019

Office 365 doesn’t have quite as many features as Office 365, but there are upsides to choosing it.

• One-time payment: Although the subscription is the more popular option, there are still benefits of a single payment. Paying the fee once means you will be able to use it for as long as the product exists. It also means you won’t have to continually factor a subscription into your expenses.
• Sixty days of support free: When purchasing Office 2019, you get sixty days of free support. This can help you set it up initially, and deal with any problems you have using it.
• Upgrades: If you were an Office 2016 user, this edition will surprise you with myriad improvements.

Office 365 vs Office 2019: IT support opinion…

If you’re a small business with only a few employees, then Office 2019 might be your best bet. If you have more employees, Office 365 is a better option.

Office 2019 is one license for one machine. Office 365 offers far more flexibility. If you want to be able to work away from the Office or outside of work hours, then 365 is the go. Even Microsoft thinks you should be using 365. Microsoft’s Office 2019 landing page sells 365 as the better option.

The reason for this is that you can. Office 365 has more applications, more features and more flexibility. Importantly, it makes it far easier to secure and backup your data.

Your staff can be more productive with the ability to work on the same document at the same time from anywhere. No more trying to consolidate 20 different versions of the same spreadsheet.

If you buy Office 2019, that is all you get, it won’t get better, and it will eventually go out of date.

Office 365 is regularly updated meaning your user experience is going to get better and better as time goes on.

Need help choosing? Ask our friendly Brisbane based IT support for advice.

You can call us for advice and for support with Office 365 or 2019 by Clicking here.

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