Review by Michael

This is the Home and Business version of Microsoft Office 2016. It comes with Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint, and One Note. Whether you get the product key card or the PC download doesn’t matter. The product key code is just a code that you use at the Microsoft website so you can download it from Microsoft (it’s a download either way).

If you’re just looking to type up or open word documents, there’s not a lot of reason to upgrade to 2016 from 2013 (or even 2010). Office 2016 has a lot of improvements made in collaboration features. But there aren’t many differences in just basic document creation or editing.

I like the new real-time Word document collaboration. The document has to be saved to Onedrive or Sharepoint for it to work. It’s awesome to have 3 people editing a word document at the same time and for you to be able to see they type as they type. Even if the other side doesn’t have Office 2016, they can use the web app. You can edit the documents with older versions of Word, but the person using the older version only sees updates when they save (same with a office mobile user). There are new version histories so you don’t have to worry about anyone destroying your document.

But even though I really like the real time collaboration, I’m not sure how I’ll use it. I can see it being useful for a group project at school. I can see it being useful for doing write up with a client, but I don’t really do that. But I’m not sure how I would use it in most of the offices I work with or in my own business. I can see quite a few places where real-time Excel would be useful, but that’s not available yet.

And beyond that, there is even more integration with Onedrive. Outlooks integrates with Onedrive for attaching files to an email but really sending them a link to your Onedrive file.

I still think the program’s great. It is the best document editor out there. But the 2016 version doesn’t add too much to the table. I wouldn’t have a reason to suggest office 2016 to any of my clients as a computer tech until at least Excel has real-time collaboration.