Magnify / Microsoft 365 includes Teams, OneDrive, and the suite of productivity apps formerly known as Office.
Microsoft
Microsoft Office was first released in 1990 and other than Windows, this is probably the Microsoft product that the general public has the most experience with. Individual apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook will all continue to exist, but from now on, the Office brand name these apps are all grouped under will disappear and be replaced by “Microsoft 365.”
The change comes first for the online Office apps on Office.com, which will make the switch in November. In January 2023, the Office app built into Windows 10 and Windows 11 and the Office mobile apps for iOS and Android will follow. When updated, the apps will pick up the Microsoft 365 branding and a new logo, seen above, that still looks a bit like an O, but in a different way to how the Office logo looks a bit like an O.
Advertisement
Microsoft’s FAQ page on the transition says Microsoft 365 will include the existing Office apps plus OneDrive and Microsoft Teams “and much more”. The company also points out that the Office brand will be around for at least a while. Existing Office 365 accounts will not be renamed (yet), and Microsoft will still sell perpetual licensed versions of Word, Excel, and the other Office apps as Office 2021. The company has previously pledged to add at least one more of these perpetual licenses. offer Office suites, but at this point we don’t know if it will continue to be known as “Office” or if it will somehow also pick up the “Microsoft 365” branding.
Office is just the latest Microsoft product that has been renamed with “Microsoft” in it. Windows Defender, the platform’s built-in anti-malware scanner, became known as Microsoft Defender in mid-2019. This page is a branding cheat sheet for eight different Office, Azure, and Microsoft products, seven of which also became versions of “Microsoft Defender.” Presumably brands like Windows and Xbox are strong enough to withstand a “Microsoft OS” or “Microsoft Box” rebadged, but when the rebranding hammer comes down to Office, there’s no telling what will happen next.