Office ProPlus vs Office 365 ProPlus

A common question I receive often has to do with Office ProPlus:

• What is Office ProPlus?
• Does this include Office 365?
• How is Office ProPlus different than Office 365?
• What are the benefits?

Short answer:

Office 365 ProPlus is a part of the Microsoft Office 365 subscription service. Many benefits are included in this service, including regular (as often as monthly) updates with new features.

Details: 

Microsoft Office Suite is a set of productivity applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, etc) that has been around for about since 1995. It has been extensively improved over the years, and new applications has been added , to the suite over time. Lots of versions and bundle packages have existed as well.

A timeline to give you some context follows:

Source: Wikipedia: Microsoft Office   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office

 

For each version of Microsoft Office going back 10+ years, there has been a version named:   Microsoft Office XXXX Professional Plus.

 Office 2010 Professional Plus , Office 2013 Professional Plus, Office 2016 Professional Plus, , Office 2019 Professional Plus

Microsoft Office 2016 / 2019 Professional Plus  is productivity software (including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, Access, Skype for Business) that is installed on your desktop or laptop computer .   It is the version that is sold in volume licensing.  It is the default package when purchasing under an EA agreement, Select, or new Microsoft Products and Services Agreement (MPSA).    Installation is achieved via a standard MSI /EXE setup package where all the software bits are fully installed onto the computer.  Once installed, there will be security patches, but no new features are available until you install a new version of Office.

Some people / press have called this version Office ProPlus in the past, but it should be called Office Professional Plus version instead. (see below)

Today there are two active versions of Microsoft Office:   Office 2016  and Office 2019 (just released on Setermber 24, 2018).

Office 2013, 2010  are in extended support, and they are no new features are being developed for it.  Office 2007 is out of support.

Office 365 Pro Plus  (also called  Office ProPlus):

Office 365 ProPlus is a version of Office that’s available through Office 365. It includes the applications that you’re familiar with, including Access, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, Skype for Business, and Word. You can use these applications to connect with Office 365 services such as SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Skype for Business Online.

Subscriptions for Office 365 can either be purchased directly from the web portal or on a traditional licensing agreement like an Enterprise Agreement, Select, or new MPSA.

 

Office 365 ProPlus is a user-based service that allows people to access Office experiences on up to 5 PCs or Macs and on their mobile devices.

Office 365 ProPlus is updated regularly, as often as monthly, with new features, unlike non-subscription versions of Office.

Office 365 ProPlus uses a different installation technology, called Click-to-Run.  (locally virtualized application)

Office 365 ProPlus is activated via Office 365 portal.

Current versions of Office 365 ProPlus are: Office 365 Pro Plus 2016 and  Office 365 Pro Plus 2019

For more information on Office 365 ProPlus:

• https://products.office.com/en-us/business/office-365-proplus-business-software
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/about-office-365-proplus-in-the-enterprise
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/about-office-365-proplus-in-the-enterprise
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/about-office-365-proplus-in-the-enterprise

 

Hope this helps!