As everything in the world gets more expensive to purchase Microsoft 365 has also followed suite and raised prices.

What is Microsoft 365?
Its your yearly subscription to:
Word
Excel
PowerPoint
Outlook (classic)
OneDrive

Microsoft Personal went from $80 per year to $115
Microsoft Family went from $110 per year to $145
https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/microsoft-365/buy/compare-all-microsoft-365-products

This will make an impact on people who were on the fence if they “really” needed office or not. $80 vs $115 is not a small jump in my opinion.

Do you need office?

The short answer is No. There are free alternatives out there like LibreOffice

www.libreoffice.org
This free office suite gives you a word processor, spreadsheets, Presentation. And the best part is that it will open Microsoft Office Documents
So what’s the down side?
It does not have a Email client
It does have a little different menu \ layout that you will have to get use to
By default is does not save in a Microsoft Office format, rather its own opensource format that you can change in the settings.

So what about Email?
We would suggest ThunderBird:

https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/
This email client looks like outlook but is another free opensource project. Like Libreoffice above it does look a bit different and will also have a learning curve.
A big down side is that Thunderbird at the time of the post does not Support Exchange Servers, so that contact and calendar list wont sync.

If you already have a business email and rely on your email \ contacts \ calendars to sync it might be best to stay with Outlook Classic.

So why stay with Microsoft?
Simple, the business world works on it. If you need to send a document or a excel spreadsheet there is a good chance that the person receiving it is expecting it to be a Microsoft Office document.

If you are using Word and Excel for personal use, it might be worth looking into the free opensource options, or just is a call or email and we would be happy to discuss your options!