Microsoft Office 365 Now On Sale For $99 Per Year

With its new Office 365 Home Premium, available today, Microsoft is encouraging its users to move to a subscription model that it says will offer more flexibility and features. The software, which we reviewed earlier, which will launch in 162 markets and 21 languages, will cost $99 per year, and come with 5 licenses per subscription, good for Macs or PCs--but not Windows RT devices. A "University" version for students and teachers will cost $79.99 for a four-year plan. The Small Business Premium version, which costs $149.99 per year, will be available on February 27, and also includes shared calendars, a 25GB mailbox with virus and spam protection, 10GB of cloud storage plus 500GB for each user.

Users will also get 20GB of additional storage on SkyDrive, for a total of 27GB, as well as 60 minutes of free Skype calls per month. The subscription includes Office On Demand, which lets a user stream Office applications to a PC, even if it's not one of the 

One benefit touted by Microsoft with the subscription model is that a user's version of Office will always be up-to-date; the company says it plans to release updates on a more timely basis than before. If you decide to stop paying for the subscription, your version of Office will go into a reduced functionality mode, letting you read and print documents, but not edit them.

Non-subscription versions are also available: Office 2013 Home and Student will cost $139, and come with Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, and Word; Home and Office costs $219, and includes Outlook; and Professional costs $399 and adds in Access and Publisher. 

Laptop Reviews Editor

Michael was the Reviews Editor at Laptop Mag. During his tenure at Laptop Mag, Michael reviewed some of the best laptops at the time, including notebooks from brands like Acer, Apple, Dell, Lenovo, and Asus. He wrote in-depth, hands-on guides about laptops that defined the world of tech, but he also stepped outside of the laptop world to talk about phones and wearables. He is now the U.S. Editor-in-Chief at our sister site Tom's Guide, where he oversees all evergreen content and the Homes, Smart Home, and Fitness/Wearables categories for the site..