I have a Personal Identification Number, or PIN. If
someone asks for my PIN number they're asking for my Personal
Identification Number number, a common mistake, when they really
want my PI Number or PIN. Another confusing term commonly tossed
around is "24/7, 365".
24/7, 365 would be 24 hours a day /
seven days a week, 365 days a year. 24/7 should be enough, 24 hours
a day / seven days a week. It would even be OK to say 24/365. It
would even make sense to say 24/7/52; 24 hours a day / seven days a
week, 52 weeks a year. But in my humble opinion 24/7 says enough.
Anyway, that's where most of us live, 24/7.
Office 365 Home is a flavor of Microsoft's current
office suite and for those of us in the 24/7 it's pretty handy. It
includes Microsoft Office 2013 (times 5), Skydrive, Office Web
Apps, Office on Demand, and Outlook.
Office 365 Home is a rental, about $100 a year that
gives you the most current versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint,
Access, Publisher, Outlook and Notebook. Current is the keyword
here, Microsoft promises to keep you current. You can install it on
up to five devices including PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets, so
you could say you're paying $20 each. You can uninstall it from a
device to install it on another device too. There is a website
where you manage your account licenses and install 365.
Let's say I have 365 on a PC in my office, on Nancy
's (not her real name), on my PC in Paris* , on my iPhone and
on Nancy's iPhone. That would be a great value, but you have to
wonder how you'd keep files managed across five devices. Who
edited what, when, and where is it now? Skydrive does that part for
you.
You tell Skydrive what to synchronize to what device
and it does it. Files I work on in Paris are waiting for me when I
return to the office. Files remain available on Skydrive in the
Cloud so you can access them from anywhere there's Internet, even
from PCs that don't have 365, or from a smartphone, or tablet.
Skydrive manages multiple authors, even working on the exact
same document at the exact same time, too.
From a non-365 device like a PC or Mac you can
access My Office online and use Web App versions of the Office
Suite, you can also download the files to work with them using
Office on the local PC. If the local PC doesn't have Office, or it
has some old version, you can use Office on Demand and run the
current version of Office right out of the Cloud. When you're done,
just save or upload the file to Skydrive and it will sync you up.
On a smartphone or tablet you can use the App or go
to My Office online, your choice. The App is very nice and easy to
install using the same website where you manage licenses. Change
some files while on the train, or driving the car**, and they're
waiting for you if you make it back from Paris.
Office 365 links to Outlook online. If you were a
hotmail user you already know a little about this. Outlook online
manages your email and syncs your calendar and contacts to your
devices. Most people have email on their phones and tablets but
using a big screen and keyboard does make life more pleasant.It
doesn't seem to be all that fast in receiving email though.
Office 365 gives you current software on your PC or
Mac without having to pay for upgrades or new versions, Web Apps
and Office on Demand if you're on some other PC or Mac, Apps for
smartphones and tablets, and Skydrive to store and synchronize your
files among all these locations, for about $10 a month.
There isn't an App for the iPad, there is for the
iPhone, and the My Office website is more than a little flaky with
Safari, Chrome, Bing, Mercury and Terra on my iPad, but who knows
what tomorrow will bring.
You can go
24/7, 365, or not, that's your call, and that's Cocktail Talk.
