Review by Tyson

Since Microsoft Office has virtually no competition and is pretty much required for students, workers and those who partake in the 21st century, it’s not especially surprising that they are now embracing the annual fee concept. With this ‘Personal’ edition you are allowed access for 1 year on 1 computer and 1 tablet. Upgrading to the ‘Home’ edition allows access on up to 5 computers. It’s basically a rip-off, but since Office Suites become outdated so quickly it’s not as bad as it sounds. At least with this you can get continual updates as they come along.

But now that I’ve griped about the subscription, let me say that I am fairly impressed with the 2014 upgrade. The SkyDrive Cloud concept is obviously the most notable change, allowing you to save directly to your online storage space rather than to the hard drive. I think this is a great way keep documents updated and accessible anywhere without having to e-mail yourself the files or trying to remember which version is which. Very cool.

Other than that, you’ll find mostly cosmetic upgrades that will take some time getting used to and don’t serve a lot of purpose, but do look nice. There are some really cool new templates, especially in Excel, that are worth checking out.

OVERALL: Although the subscription fees rub me the wrong way, I love the save-to-cloud upgrade that Office 365 offers and am a fan of some of the new content/layouts. As everyone knows, Office is a must-have for pretty much everything we do in the world nowadays, and it is fabulous software. If you don’t care about the cloud, however, don’t feel like you have to rush out and upgrade. The new perks are hardly revolutionary, merely cool at best.