Office 365

Name: Office 365
Rating: 4.4

Is This Your Business?

4.4

star star star star star_half

36 User Reviews

LAST UPDATED: March 9th, 2022

Microsoft Office is a company that has been trying to catch up in recent years to Google, Apple, and other companies that tend to foray into the web conferencing area. When we sat down to review Microsoft’s conferencing platform, we wondered exactly what it was. Essentially, Microsoft Office is fully online, and Skype is now driving the conferencing component of Microsoft Office. Frankly, we wondered why one might pay for a subscription to Skype as part of Microsoft Office. However, there were some things that we did like.

Microsoft 365 rolled out in 2013. It allowed businesses to get Skype credit every month, get access to storage and Office applications in the cloud, and let the business use Microsoft product on up to 5 computers with the business.

Top Ranked Companies

Zoom

4.5

star star star star star_half

(363)

View Profile View Profile

Google Hangouts

4.3

star star star star star_half

(129)

View Profile View Profile

Adobe Connect

4.7

star star star star star_half

(3)

View Profile View Profile

thumb_up

The Good

Functionality
Reputation
Integration
Price
Benefits
Scheduling meetings

The core functionality of Skype is pretty good. We like Skype because it has been around the longest, and is now the cornerstone of Microsoft's conferencing plan for small businesses. What we really liked about Skype was that it lets you network outside of the Microsoft network to Skype users around the world. Your conference guest might not have Office, but they might have a Skype account. This makes it very easy for them to find you in Skype's directory. Another thing that we liked about Skype was its reputation. Why the customer service is not always perfect, Skype has a reliable track record. Skype also has a pretty good user interface. It's easy to get the video to open up in a chat, you can add up to 10 people to a conference call. We wondered how many people you could add to a Skype video call on a mobile device. We think that integrating Skype was one of the smartest things that Microsoft did to expand its foothold in the web conferencing industry. With the clunkiness and limits of Lync, Skype makes it easy for users to interact with one another on short notices. Microsoft, hands down, gave us one of the best prices in the industry. You get access to Microsoft 365, which includes Office. If you do the screen share thing, you're going to have to use the tools in your open document to do annotations. However, Skype does have an annotation tool called Yugma, if you really feel a need to take notes during the lecture. Office 365 and Skype have helped give users the benefit of combining the top Office software with one of the most renowned chat and conferencing tools around. We also liked that the Skype and Microsoft Office integrations give you everything found in other web conferencing platforms:

Annotations and whiteboards.
Recording and saving of video for archival later.
Storage space on your cloud's hard drive.
A virtual "waiting room" for meeting attendants.
The ability to screen your entrants and control who talks.

The ability to schedule meetings in Outlook was critical for us. We liked that we could control our entire schedule from one browser and one calendar. Additionally, the meeting scheduler is a really important tool for businesses that have to schedule on the fly. The other benefit of the business plan with Outlook is that the web conferencing and telephone experiences are really good. Microsoft uses HD.

thumb_down

The Bad

Customer service
Experience
Compatibility

Skype, overall, is a pretty good platform that Microsoft picked up, but there are some caveats. If you've ever dealt with Skype's customer service, they are pretty much nonexistent. If you lose your password, for example, it can take a long time to resolve the issue. One of the things about the Office 365/Skype combined experience is that it just seems a little bit weird. At least with Google's platform, you get the same experience all across Google's Hangouts, Drive, and other products when you use Google for Internet telephony. That experience is lost in the Office 365 experience. You don't get the seamless Office from email to conferencing experience. If you stick with Microsoft 365 as a provider of your conferencing and office solutions, you'd better get a Windows Phone. It's not going to be very easy to use an iPhone to use Word or Excel. Your best bet is to get Office 365 if you are sticking with a Windows phone.

gavel

The Bottom Line

We would recommend Office 365 for businesses that want to put their chat, conferencing, and documents all in the cloud. The Skype integration is not always useful and intuitive, but it represents the thought that Microsoft is trying to move into a cloud-based realm that makes it more favorable and feasible. If you have a bunch of Surface tablets on your team, Microsoft Office 365 could be a great subscription for you and your team. You can also get the Skype business version with Microsoft 365 and not worry about cranking out the big dough for Microsoft.

Was this content helpful?

thumb_up Yes thumb_down No

border_color Write a Review

User Reviews

Star Rating

4.4

star star star star star_half

36 Reviews

Review Breakdown

5 grade

64%

4 grade

19%

3 grade

11%

2 grade

1 grade

Sentiment Criteria

Value

star star star star star_half

Quality

star star star star star_half

Service

star star star star star_half

Trustworthiness

star star star star star_half

cancel

Filter by:

arrow_drop_down

Sort by:

arrow_drop_down

star star star star star

Cindy R Tallahassee, FL

Office 365 is awesome for university students like myself! I don’t have to pay anything outside of tuition to use this and it comes with great things like word outlook, PowerPoint, slides, etc. It’s a great tool to have for students for free.

8 months ago

star star star star star

Victoria Hahn MN

I use office products at my job everyday! Their products are easily transferable and all of their products are so accessible!

3 months ago

star star star star star_border

Scott Grange San Jose, CA

Teams web conferencing is very easy to use. Sharing screens and switching controls are easy. Only issue is that you can't have two concurrent sessions (one view only and the other with audio/video).

4 months ago

star star star star star_border

anna blaser St Louis, MO

For me, it’s pretty expensive, but I could understand why people would really enjoy this. The good part is that you automatically give you the updated version. Overall, not bad, but I prefer other services like Zoom.

5 months ago

star star star star_border star_border

LBurr96 Herriman, UT

Teams has been a great help during the pandemic. It has helped me and my team to communicate better over long distances. I especially like the layout because it made it easier to interact with all members of the team through chat, voice or reactions.

5 months ago

star star star star star

Hijah Smith Tallahassee, FL

I use Office 365 daily to carry out my college student needs. I use it to view and edit powerpoints, send emails, write essays, etc. Anything that a college student needs for school it is offered through Office 365.

6 months ago

star star star star star

Stephanie Nwaobi Tallahassee, FL

My school district in K-12 system paid for Office 365 for every student and it is one of the most helpful things ever to collaborate on and share projects with different people.

7 months ago

star star star star star_border

Sam Winster Belleville, NJ

I've used Office 365 for my last few jobs and I love the fact that you can log in from anywhere and pretty much have all your work there. If you need documents, you can have them no matter where you are. Plus, for the price, it's not very expensive. It also connects with Skype which makes it much easier to find people and connect with them as well.

5 years ago

star star star star star_border

abw fsu Tallahassee, FL

I am a new user of Office 365, but I have grown to love it! It's more secure than Zoom or Google Meets, so I feel a lot safer about using it for work calls. Even more, Office 365 is connected to Outlook. Whenever someone schedules a meeting with me through email, it automatically adds the Office 365 link to my calendar and sends me reminders when it comes close to my meeting time! Office 365 is very convenient and easy to use.

10 months ago

star star star star star

Steve Ashby Portland, OR

We are using Teams exclusively at our work (It's a Fortune100 company) and I really like the incremental improvements. It keeps getting better and better. The quality is great and it integrates will in the overall Teams and 365 environment. I've been using some videos on YouTube that walk through the features and that has been helpful in learning new features.

1 year ago

star star star star star

Ryan Harpenau Fayetteville, AR

What I like best about Office 365 is the many different applications that are included in it. With Microsoft Teams, I am able to meet with my research lab group virtually since the pandemic has prevented in-person meeting at my university. I do all of my assignments on Microsoft Word due to the many different tools I can use compared to Google Docs which has much less.

1 year ago

star star star star star

Desiree Pleasant Grove, UT

I am a student enrolled to a college, and I love Office 365. I use it for my school or other work that I need to finish. I'm so grateful for that college students are able to access all the apps with this feature and share the subscription with 6 other people.

1 year ago

star star star star star

Danielle Luma Tallahassee, FL

This whole system is really good. I personally use Outlook for my email and I find it to be useful when emailing other people!

6 months ago

star star star star star_border

Vy Ha Birmingham, AL

A software program I purchased my freshmen year. It has a lot of features for the price and seems reasonable for purchase . Couldn’t renew due to orice

7 months ago

star star star star star

Laila Hayes Tallahassee, FL

Office 365 was a reliable method of online conferencing. It has features to facilitate discussions, such as raising a hand or showing a thumbs up.

8 months ago

star star star star_border star_border

Kenneth Okerlund Orem, UT

Very great product and very customer focused software. It is nice to be able to get all of your work/data from anywhere that you can log in. The only thing that I do not like is the customer support which is absolutely terrible.

5 years ago

star star star star star

Bianca Chipley, FL

Office 365 makes school conference calls super easy to set up and host!

3 months ago

star star star star star

Lisa Williams Jacksonville, FL

It has been really well. It allows me to see my documents while also being able to check my emails with no issues.

7 months ago

star star star star star

A'mari Johnson Ocala, FL

I use this app when I am working on group projects or if I need to share a document. This is very convenient

8 months ago

star star star_border star_border star_border

Brooklyn Jensen Provo, UT

Microsoft Teams has rarely worked correctly with my MacBook. Even with all the settings set the same, some days the mic and speaker will work; however, more often than not, I had to call in on my phone and use my laptop for the video which was inconvenient and time consuming.

9 months ago

star star star star star

J B Sandy, UT

We use Office web conferencing at work, and the quality is excellent.

5 months ago

star star star star star

Glenn Dalton Salt Lake City, UT

easy to use conferencing. Good quality audio and video. Good pricing.

5 months ago

star star star star star

Natalia Correa MDTribe Tallahassee, FL

Office 365 is super convenient and easy to use. I highly recommend it for anyone because it is very reliable.

2 years ago

star star star star star_border

Jordan Garella Tallahassee, FL

Very easy program to use and is accepted by most programs

3 months ago

star star star star star

Jazmyne Tallahassee, FL

Great way to store information in one place ,very convenient .

8 months ago

star star star star star

AndyGrimes Short Hills, NJ

So far so good, since my company gave me a free license everything works pretty well and smoothly.

1 year ago

star star star star star

Heather Milke Olney, MD

We use Office 365 at my work, and I love that everything is built into one platform. Also I know it is protected.

1 year ago

star star star star star

KKin Preston, ID

Great platform for working remotely. My team and I are able to communicate regularly and call quickly when necessary.

1 year ago

star star star star star

Dre35 West Valley City, UT

Love this set up! Allows me to work on files from any computer, especially when docs are saved in the cloud.

1 year ago

star star star star_border star_border

Jen Coose Benton, AR

Somewhat satisfactory system. More difficult to navigate than others

4 months ago

star star star star star

Hannah Burke Rexburg, ID

Easy to use and easy to use and easy to connect

10 months ago

star star star star star

Nya Nicole Tallahassee, FL

Great for doing assignments and writing papers

7 months ago

star star star star star

Zharia Allums Tallahassee, FL

It’s a pretty easy service to use and it has been beneficial in both grade school and college.

1 year ago

star star star star star_border

Mallory Evans Park City, UT

I have used Office 365 throughout my years at college. It is easy to work with and made me more organized.

1 year ago

star star_border star_border star_border star_border

r vido Provo, UT

I had to use this for one of my classes and it sucked. It had all these weird settings and the whole interface didn't make a lot of sense

9 months ago

star star star star_border star_border

Rylaan Marlowe Roy, UT

Great products, just find it crazy I have to pay for a subscription to the services. Just let me buy once and update.

1 year ago