In 2020, Microsoft officially changed the name of the Office 365 products to Microsoft 365; at the same time, the distinction between the two products was changed. The Office 365 product was originally a licensing solution that enabled organizations and individuals to subscribe to all standard productivity applications, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, with a single license. Various editions of Office 365 also included cloud services, such as email.
For existing Office 365 subscribers, the change is primarily in the software’s branding. All Office 365 subscriptions were automatically changed to Microsoft 365 subscriptions in 2020 without altering their terms. Microsoft is also gradually updating the Office 365 websites and apps to reflect the name change and the new Microsoft 365 logo, as shown in Figure 1-6.
FIGURE 1-6 The Microsoft 365 logo
The Microsoft 365 products include the productivity applications, which are still referred to as Office applications, but the package also includes the latest Windows operating system and a larger selection of cloud-based communication and collaboration services, such as Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Teams, and Yammer.
With editions designed for home, business, enterprise, and education subscribers at various price levels, Microsoft 365 can also include a variety of additional security and management tools, such as Microsoft Intune and Azure Information Protection.
Skill 1.2: Describe the benefits of and considerations for using cloud, hybrid, or on-premises services
Flexibility is an important aspect of cloud computing, and Microsoft 365 can accommodate a wide variety of IT environments. While some organizations might be building a Microsoft 365 deployment from scratch, others might have existing infrastructure they want to incorporate into a Microsoft 365 solution. Before it is possible to explore how this can be done, it is important to understand the various types of cloud architectures and service models.
This section covers how to: