Organizations that need Microsoft Office software have a variety of options to choose from among the donated and discounted options available at TechSoup.
But what's the difference between the desktop versions of Office available through TechSoup as volume licensing products and the subscription-based Office 365?
Office Desktop: Office Standard and Office Professional Plus
Locally Installed Office Applications Included
If you just need locally installed desktop applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Publisher, you can request Office Standard or Office Professional Plus through TechSoup. Office Standard is available as either a donated product or a discounted product, whereas Professional Plus is only available as a discounted product. Professional Plus includes all the same products that Standard includes, plus Access, Skype for Business, and InfoPath. (Note that InfoPath was discontinued after the 2013 version, and so InfoPath 2013 is the version that's included in Office Professional Plus.)
One-Time Payment
When you request Office Standard or Office Professional Plus through TechSoup, you pay a one-time admin fee and receive a perpetual license (through Volume Licensing) for the software.
Free Upgrades for Two Years
All Microsoft software products requested through TechSoup include Software Assurance, which provides you with a number of benefits. Those benefits include free product upgrades to new versions of the software released for two years, so if a new version of Office comes out, you can upgrade for free. However, when your Software Assurance expires after two years, you'll need to pay for a new license if you want to upgrade to a newly released version.
Office 365: Business and Enterprise Subscription Options
Exclusive Cloud Services
Office 365 subscriptions available through TechSoup provide exclusive cloud services that you won't get with the standalone desktop applications. These services include hosted email and calendars, web and voice conferencing, online file storage and sharing, and more. The services that are included depend on the Office 365 subscription you choose. See a comparison of these plans.
Locally Installed Office Applications Included with Some Subscriptions
The same locally installed Office applications included with Office Standard and Office Professional Plus can be obtained through many Office 365 subscriptions. The following subscriptions available through TechSoup include all the Office applications that are in Office Professional Plus (except for InfoPath 2013):
- Office 365 Nonprofit Business Premium
- Office 365 Nonprofit E3
- Office 365 Nonprofit E5
See a comparison of these plans.
Subscription-Based Payments (or Free)
When you request an Office 365 subscription, you can choose one of the free donated plans where you don't pay any monthly fees, or you can choose a paid plan where you pay discounted monthly subscription fees ranging from $3 to $15 per user. The primary difference between the free, donated subscriptions and the paid, discounted subscriptions is that the donated plans don't include locally installed Office applications.
Upgrades Included
Since Office 365 is a subscription-based product, the software and services you receive are always up to date. This benefit means you'll always be working with the latest versions of the Office applications if you choose a subscription that includes those products.
A Third Option: Use Both Office 365 and Office Desktop Software
For some organizations, it can be cost-effective to use a combination of Office 365 subscriptions and locally installed versions of Office that you request through TechSoup. For instance, maybe your organization already has several computers with desktop versions of Office installed. Or perhaps it's just easier for your organization to maintain software licenses obtained through traditional one-time payments. In these cases, you could request free Office 365 subscriptions that don't include Office applications to benefit from cloud services while still using your perpetually licensed desktop Office applications.
What's more, your employees don't need to be on the same Office 365 plan. If some of your staff members need Office applications and others don't, you can pick the appropriate plan for each of them.
Just be careful not to install the Office desktop applications obtained through an Office 365 subscription on the same device as one of the Office desktop applications obtained through Volume Licensing. This principle applies to all Office products available as donations through TechSoup, including Skype for Business, Visio, and Project. You'll need to uninstall any Office desktop applications that you've received through TechSoup before installing the applications provided through the Office 365 subscriptions.
Get Office Desktop or Office 365 Through TechSoup
