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Office 365 drops beta tag, final pricing and plans revealed

Jun 28, 2011 5:28 am by damaster | 3 comments

In just less than two hours (10AM EDT), Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is set to launch their Office 365 cloud computing service in a New York launch party. Office 365 had been available for beta testing since October last year when it was officially unveiled, and is set to replace Office Live Small Business and Live@edu services later this year.

Ahead of the launch, the Office 365 service has already dropped its beta tag, and the official website at Office365.com has been updated to reveal pricing details for professionals, small businesses, mid-size businesses, and enterprises:

Professionals and small businesses (Plan P) for businesses with up to 25 employees is available for $6 per user per month, and includes Office Web Apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online
Midsize businesses and enterprises (Plans E1-E4) for businesses of any size is available ranging from $10 to $27 per user per month. and depending on the plan selected, it includes a combination of Office Web Apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online as well as Active Directory integration, on-premise deployment of Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, Lync Server, and Office 2010 Professional Plus.
Midsize businesses and enterprises (Plans K1 & K2) is designed for enterprises with kiosk workers, and is available for either $4 or $10 per user per month. It offers a combination of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, as well as Office Web Apps depending on the plan selected.
Academic and educational institutions The starter package for Office 365 for Education will be available for free for students and at academic licensing of $10 per user per month for educators and staff, which includes Office Web Apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online, team sites, single sign-on and control and management capabilities. For educational institutions that requires on-premise deployment of Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, Lync Server, and Office 2010 Professional Plus, a plan is also available for $2 per user per month for students plus $14 per user per month for educator and staff.

You can check out the full pricing plans and details here. Microsoft has also published the release notes for Office 365 and is viewable here. Office 365 will be available in 40 countries at launch later today. A webcast of the launch event will also be available at Microsoft News Center, which we have embedded below:

You can also check out the official press release here.

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Chris
Pricing seems alright. I still don’t get how Apple can charge $10 for their word processor. Download only. No keys. No boxes or discs. No actvacations or that scan to make sure your windows is legit and microsft still wants to charge $300 or more for the a product that does the same thing.
I’m a windows and android user. I also own an iPad. Still shock over Microsoft pricing.
- http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/6G3ZZJCHOLYP3S5CRCIHQ7WDSE MVIM
  That’s enterprise pricing for you. Think about Adobe Photoshop. Companies spend several hundred dollars per user to license it, while the free and open-source GIMP would fulfill 90% of many of those companies’ needs. Yet, what uptake does it have in the computer graphic arts field?
  Companies will pay any price to get what they feel is a premium product. They want the product that “everybody else” is using, both for compatibility and competitive reasons. For graphics that product is Adobe Photoshop. For word processing, it’s Microsoft Word.
  - Chris
    Even for them it shouldn’t cost that much.