Microsoft to Rebrand Some Office 365 SKUs Starting in April

If you were to point to one software-as-a-service product inside of Microsoft that has been a pillar of the company’s growth, Office 365 would be it. And because things have gotten a bit too comfortable around the Microsoft neighborhood, they are going to rebrand some SKUs while leaving others in their place.

But the change does have some merit as the Office brand has become a bit stretched. Announced today, and starting on April 21^st, Microsoft is going to rebrand the following Office 365 SKUs to draw a slightly clearer line between Office 365 and Microsoft 365:

• Office 365 Business Essentials will become Microsoft 365 Business Basic.
• Office 365 Business Premium will become Microsoft 365 Business Standard.
• Microsoft 365 Business will become Microsoft 365 Business Premium.
• Office 365 Business and Office 365 ProPlus will both become Microsoft 365 Apps. Where necessary Microsoft will use the “for business” and “for enterprise” labels to distinguish between the two.

The following Office 365 plans will have no changes:

Office 365 for Enterprise

• Office 365 E1
• Office 365 E3
• Office 365 E5

Office 365 for Firstline Workers

• Office 365 F1

Office 365 for Education

• Office 365 A1
• Office 365 A3
• Office 365 A5

Office 365 for Government

• Office 365 G1
• Office 365 G3
• Office 365 G5

Microsoft is making these changes to the above accounts as they feel that some of the bundles were reaching outside of what ‘Office’ brand is intended to include. And for those of you worried about pricing, Microsoft says that this is only a name change and that pricing will not be modified.

This is a big shift for Microsoft as Office 365 is one of the most well-recognized names in the productivity space. By moving to Microsoft 365 brand, the company is looking to separate what was classically known as Office and move the features that were not part of that core suite of productivity tools to the new Microsoft 365 naming convention.