Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) To Officially Launch Office 2016

Microsoft Campus
A building on the Microsoft Headquarters campus is pictured July 17, 2014 in Redmond, Washington. (Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)

Folks at Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) are excited about today because the company is officially launching its new office software, Office 2016.

The new Office Suite has been under scrutiny and testing for the better part of this year but the appointed D-day is finally here. 0ffice 2016 for Windows has been completely revamped with a new versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, Vision, Project, OneNote and Outlook. It has also been optimized to run on Windows machines running Windows 7, Windows 8 and the latest introduction, Windows 10.

Some of the visuals upgrades include different color schemes such as blue for Word, orange for PowerPoint and green for Excel. Some new chart types have also been added to Excel, making it the ideal tool for presentation experts.

Some of the latest unique features brought on board include co-authoring through OneNote, PowerPoint and Word. Other additions include integrated Power BI publishing functionality in Excel, real-time typing in Word and improved search and navigational functionalities in Outlook. The company has also promised new sync clients for Mac and Windows before the end of the year. Another expected feature is Enterprise data protection for enhanced security especially on the Windows 10 platform.

Microsoft will also launch Office mobile apps though their launch will be delayed until next year. The Mac Office 2016 suite is will be available for preview today. As for the costs of purchasing Microsoft’s latest offering, the pricing will be as follows: Office Home and Business will cost $229; Office Home & Student package will be priced at $149; while Office Professional will cost $399.

Office 365 Personal will have an annual fee of $84. It will include Outlook, Publisher, PowerPoint, OneNote, Word, Excel and Access. Installation on one PC will include one phone and one installation. AnOffice 365 Home subscription will cost $120 per year. It will include all the basic offerings of Office 365 Personal plus installation to 5 phones and 5 PCs/Macs.

Sources: zdnet