Simple Explanation of The Differences Between Office 365, Microsoft 365 and Windows 365

It is difficult to understand what Microsoft if offering these days.  It was hard enough when there was just Office 365 with the E1 E3 and E5 packages but today Microsoft is offering 3 different bundles (Office, Windows & Microsoft) each with their own E1 E3 and E5 sub-bundles.

What is Office 365?

In simple terms, Office365 is a bundle of software that (for most packages) provides Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and more on the desktop through a local install plus OneDrive cloud storage and a hosted Exchange mail server.

What is Windows 365?

In simple terms, Windows 365 is a Windows 10 for the desktop subscription.  Note that Windows 365 is not a real thing.  Microsoft has decided to call its Windows subscription model “Windows E1″ Windows E3” and Windows “E5”, but we find that very confusing so we promote it as Windows 365 which makes more sense to our customers.

What is Microsoft 365?

In simple terms, Microsoft 365 is Office 365 + Windows 365 which means you are buying a subscription to Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint…) and a subscription to Windows 10.

What are the different Bundles Microsoft Offers?

Below are the three (of many) Entry Level bundles (E1’s and F1’s) available as of October 2018:

Below are the three (of many) Mid-Level bundles (E3’s) available as of October 2018:

Below are the three (of many) High-Level bundles (E5’s) available as of October 2018:

Note that we provide a free 30 day trial of Office 365 to small and medium businesses HERE but if you are enterprise scale we recommend using a larger provider like PCM.