Microsoft on Tuesday released its new Office 2013 and Office 365 productiveness software suite . drop off in the announcement , however , was what ( if anything ) those suites would mean to Mac users . Macworldspoke to Microsoft representatives to get some clearing .
For fledgeling , Office 2013 does n’t intend anything to the Mac : it ’s for Windows computers only . Office 365 , on the other script , does impact Mac users , but it does n’t insert any new feature ; rather , it ’s fundamentally a new licensing model for Office for Mac .
A subscription to Office 365 ( $ 10 per month , or $ 100 per year ) founder you the right field to download Office software system to up to five computers . For Mac users , what you ’ll download is Office for Mac 2011 — it ’s pretty much the same version of the rooms that we ’ve been using for a distich of old age now , but it ’s been update to include energizing for Office 365 Home Premium . Your subscription must be renewed monthly or annually to proceed to use the software . ( Afour - twelvemonth instruction versionthat runs on two computers is useable for $ 80 . )
If you currently own Office for Mac 2011 , you must uninstall that software when you sign up for Office 365 . You will then download and set up Office for Mac 2011 through your Office 365 chronicle — again , on up to five Macs .
macintosh users who sign up for Office 365 will also get 20 GB of SkyDrive storage ( up from the 5 GB that do with a free account ) and 60 minutes per month of Skype calls .
One of the marquee Modern feature of speech of Office 365 isOffice on Demand , a service that allow a PC without Word , Excel , or PowerPoint set up to run those programme via Internet streaming . But Office on Demand is a Windows - only feature ; it remain to be understand whether it will be available to Mac users when the next edition of Office for Mac is released .
mack users do have an option to Office on Demand : Microsoft ’s Web apps , which have been uncommitted since 2010 . approachable through aSkyDriveaccount , those apps lease you make and delete Word document , Excel spreadsheets , and PowerPoint demonstration using entanglement - based versions of those apps , then make unnecessary those written document to your SkyDrive or Mac . However , those Web apps are n’t as full - featured as the desktop versions ; SkyDrive does furnish the choice to open a document directly in the desktop reading of each programme ( provide that app is on your Mac ) .
Unrelated to the Office 365 / Office 2013 proclamation , Microsoft exhaust anupdate for Office for Mac 2011on Tuesday . The update provides several fixes to Outlook and PowerPoint .
