Microsoft announces a new subscription level for Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) for the beginning of February. It is intended to close the gap between free accounts and the cheapest “Microsoft 365 Single” offer. The new subscription is called “Microsoft 365 Basic”, costs 2 euros per month or 20 euros per year and provides 100 GB of cloud storage on OneDrive. Ads will also be removed from Outlook.com and subscribers will get support for Microsoft 365 and Windows 11. Additional features such as ransomware protection and password-protected sharing links are announced for the future.
Microsoft 365 Basic does not contain the Office programs that can be installed locally, but is limited to the browser versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, which are also available to users of a free Microsoft account with only 5 GB of OneDrive storage. Essentially, Microsoft 365 Basic is a cloud storage subscription. It is priced on par with Google Drive; the subscriptions to the competitor Dropbox only start at 2 TB for ten euros per month.
In fact, Microsoft 365 Basic is not all that new: Microsoft has been offering a OneDrive subscription (“OneDrive Standalone”) with 100 GB for the same price for some time – but without ad-free Outlook.com and the announced protection functions. Owners of this subscription should be automatically switched to Microsoft 365 Basic.
The cloud storage subscription previously offered by Microsoft as “OneDrive Standalone” will be called “Microsoft 365 Basic” in the future, but otherwise has few additional functions, at least at the start.
(Image: Microsoft)
With teams, cloud storage and company domain
Microsoft 365 Basic is not to be confused with the existing “Microsoft 365 Business Basic” plan. This is a small business plan and is paid per user. Although it also does not contain the Office programs that can be installed locally, it does contain 1 TB of cloud storage and e-mail accounts with a company domain. It also allows team conferences with up to 300 participants.
It was recently announced to Microsoft 365 Personal and Microsoft 365 Family subscribers that starting in February 2023, all mail attachments in their Outlook.com mailbox would be deducted from their OneDrive quota (typically 1 TB). However, Microsoft is increasing this by 50 GB for a transition period of one year. Free Microsoft accounts do not seem to be affected by this so far.
In addition to the 5 GB of cloud storage, there is also an additional 15 GB for the Outlook.com mailbox including attachments. It is still unknown whether this will remain the case or whether Microsoft is planning a change similar to that of the MS 365 accounts in order to encourage the conclusion of an MS 365 Basic subscription.
(Picture: c’t 4/2023 )
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