Microsoft Office 2016: what's new for businesses
Many businesses began on Microsoft's suite of office apps. Since its first release in 1990, the product has adjusted to both workers' changing needs as well as the maturity of technology. Office 2016's release combines the storage and collaboration benefits of the cloud with the business applications your employees are accustomed to.
Microsoft's dev team have worked to make the release, which follows Windows 10, "the most secure Office" so far. Enterprise Data Protection will be available for Office Mobile apps for Windows 10 later this year and for desktop apps early next year, allowing secure sharing within corporate boundaries.
More importantly, Microsoft has included a host of collaborative, intuitive features that could change the way projects are managed and your employees work together.
What's new in Office 2016
Office 2016 has new versions of Office desktop apps for Windows, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Project, Visio and Access.
By subscribing to Office 365, customers have access to OneDrive online storage, Skype for Business, Delve and Yammer. The track for enterprise users has a 12 month testing window so IT pros can decide what features they'll be turning on - and off - once it has been tested in the wild.
Top features in Office 2016 that employees will love
Tell me
Excel functions can be difficult to grasp. Now you can ask your spreadsheets how to work themselves out through a search bar. Excel 2016 also includes integrated publishing to Power BI and new modern chart types to make data visualisation simpler.
Mobile
Office Mobile apps on Windows 10 work with responsive Continuum so your employees can use their phone like a PC. During demos of Office 2016, ComputerworldUK noted that most demonstrators were using iPhones. This new suite recognises the fact that employees aren't using Windows phones, and has adjusted the UI to ensure it works seamlessly across iOS phones and devices.
Cortana
Microsoft's answer to Siri, Cortana, connects with Office 365 to help with tasks such as meeting preparation, with Outlook integration coming in November.
Easy share
Forget saving a document to a PC and then attaching it to an email - now employees can instant message while completing a document and send it over using OneDrive instantly. Microsoft have put Skype in-app integration across the Office online and rich client apps so employees can screen share, talk or video chat while editing a document - which now comes with instantaneous co-authoring which mimics Google docs.
GigJam
Sales made easy. Instant annotation of documents allows you to quickly remove confidential information and send it to the appropriate person.
Intuitive email
Microsoft's email algorithms detect more than just junk mail. Outlook has advanced to reading who is the main subject in an email, and who is simply CC'ed. This allows it to filter emails from those who are either more senior, or who you interact with more, freeing up your inbox for the most important messages.
Sway
Powerpoint has a place in every office - like it or not - but this new storytelling application allows teams working on projects to easily manipulate content from different sources and present and share it with ease.
And for the IT pros...
OneDrive for Business
IT pros will be glad to know that new updates for enterprise will be announced this month - including a new sync client for Windows and Mac, increased file size and volume limits per user, a new user interface in the browser, mobile enhancements, and new IT and developer features, Microsoft revealed today.
Security
Microsoft is adding built-in Data Loss Prevention (DLP) to reduce the risk of sensitive data leaks, by giving IT admins tools to centrally create, manage and enforce policies for content authoring and document sharing.
Multifactor Authentication ensures secure access to content anywhere when employees are away from the corporate network.
It's also adding Information Rights Management to Visio.
Later this year it will introduce Enterprise Data Protection (EDP) in Windows 10, with support in Office Mobile, for secure corporate content sharing across corporate managed apps and network/cloud locations, preventing content inadvertently being shared outside corporate boundaries.