What’s in Office 2016 to Make It a Worthy Enterprise Upgrade

Touted as the perfect complement to Windows 10, Office 2016 is now available. Here is why companies should upgrade to the new version of the productivity suite.

Working together and collaborating with co-workers is much easier in Office 2016. It’s now much easier for users to work together on a Word or PowerPoint document and see the edits in real time. After those edits are completed, users can go back to see version histories. Another important collaboration feature is a handy “Share” button that makes it easy to share documents with other people.

Expect multiplatform support to be an important component in what ultimately drives sales for Office. Since Microsoft has opted for a cross-platform launch, users can start working on a document on their PC and go to a smartphone, tablet or Mac and pick up where they left off. The barriers to getting Office to work well on all devices have been removed.

Microsoft says that Office 2016 users will gain faster access to key features. For instance, a new feature called Tell Me will allow users to ask the application what they’re looking for (“I want to create a bar graph,” for instance) and the software will guide users to that command. Microsoft says that its hope is to make it as easy as possible for users to find features that have been heretofore buried in apps.

While Microsoft has made several meaningful changes over the years, the company is still committed to getting people tied into its platforms. Perhaps that’s why Office 2016 has some extra benefits when used on Windows 10. For one, users can use Windows Hello to sign in to both their PCs and Office 365 in a flash. In addition, Windows 10 owners will find support for Sway in Office 2016, giving them the ability to quickly make presentations.

Security features have been added to Office 2016 to make the platform a bit more appealing to CIOs and CISOs. Microsoft says that Office 2016 comes with built-in data loss prevention to give IT administrators more control over document sharing. In addition, the platform includes multifactor authentication. Later this year, Microsoft says it will add Enterprise Data Protection to the Windows 10 version, which will allow companies to securely share content across their apps and network locations.

Microsoft has done a fine job of optimizing Office 2016 for mobile devices. Whether it’s a Windows 10 Mobile product or an Android or iOS device, users will find that the platforms are still quite usable on a range of smartphones and tablets. Office is optimized for touch on all of those platforms, making it easier to move around and get work done.

The cloud is readily accessible from Office 365. In fact, Microsoft’s software includes quick access to the company’s OneDrive cloud storage. In addition, the cloud will be used to sync documents across devices. Users will even get 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage when downloading Office 2016.

When writing a document or creating a graph, users will often need to check to see if something is factual. For those moments, Microsoft has added a nifty feature called Bing Smart Lookup. Upon highlighting something in the document, users will be able to query Bing and get relevant search results within Office. The Smart Lookup feature could prove to be a nice add-on for those seeking reassurance that what they’re typing is indeed true.

Users who rely on Cortana and enjoy using the virtual personal assistant will like what they find in Office 2016. The productivity suite includes full support for Cortana, helping users to schedule meetings, handle calendar items in Outlook and much more. Cortana is always present in Office 2016.

It’s hard to find a reason to pass up Office 2016. For one thing, Office 2016 doesn’t come with an additional cost for current Office 365 users, so it won’t impact budgets. Better yet, Microsoft is offering a trial period of Office 2016 so users can check it out before they update. Simply put, there’s no risk to downloading Office 2016. The app is similar to the previous version, comes with improved features, works across devices and doesn’t cost any more than an Office 365 subscription.