Office 365 is a ‘virtual no-brainer’ for most users

I’ve always been a fan of Office 365. If I were buying Office outright for my family, I’d probably opt for Office Home & Business 2013–but that’s $220 times five people. In other words, It will take me 11 years worth of Office 365 Home subscriptions to spend the same money it would cost me to buy Office Home & Business 2013 one time, and I get to spread that $1,100 over 11 years instead of paying it all at once. Then there are additional perks and benefits on top of that!

I wrote a blog post about why you should subscribe to Office 365:

No matter which holiday you celebrate, or even if you don’t celebrate any of them, the holiday shopping season is a time for great deals on PCs and gadgets of all shapes and sizes. One of the primary things most people use a computer for — and increasingly mobile devices as well — is productivity, like writing documents, creating presentations, plus managing email, contacts, and calendars.

Microsoft Office is the de facto standard for productivity suites, but it’s not cheap. In fact, depending on which version of the suite you choose, Microsoft Office will most likely wipe out your holiday discount savings and then some. You could just use the free Office Online apps, but they have limited functionality. Thankfully, if you want the full Microsoft Office experience, there is a different — and arguably better — way to acquire the productivity suite: Office 365.

Let’s take a look at three reasons you should subscribe to Office 365.

1. Cost

The cost of buying the Microsoft Office suite varies, depending on the version you choose. There’s Office Home & Student 2013 for $140 (USD), Office Home & Business 2013 for $220, and Office Professional 2013 for $400. Home & Student includes just the core four products — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Home & Business adds in Outlook, and Professional includes everything in Home & Business plus Publisher and Access.

Office 365 costs $70 per year (or $7 per month) for Office 365 Personal for a single individual, and $100 per year (or $10 per month) for Office 365 Home for up to five people — and no matter which subscription you choose, it includes the full Office Professional 2013 for each person. Even if all you really need is Office Home & Student 2013, if you’re buying it for five people, it’s the equivalent of seven years’ worth of Office 365 Home subscription payments…

Read the complete post at TechRepublic: Three reasons why you should subscribe to Office 365.