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Mature and versatile, and evolving all the time
Purely on points, we have a draw between Microsoft Office and iWork. As iWork is free, it has the edge for home users. Self-employed people who need to produce estimates, print invoices and do accounts in a versatile spreadsheet, will also find all they need here. It’s got excellent layout tools and supports a broad range of third-party formats for import and export. It wasn’t perfect on this latter point, so if you need absolute fidelity in a business setting you might still want to consider Microsoft Office.
That’s why, ultimately, we believe Office is worth the asking price. Home users can pay a one-off £119 for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, or £59 a year to add in Outlook, OneDrive and Skype calling minutes. For £79 a year you can install it on five devices rather than just one, and there are per-seat options for enterprise. It sports excellent collaboration features, which even in a small business allows teams to work together on a single file, facilitating home and remote working, and keeping everyone’s changes in sync.
Where layout tools are concerned, iWork is still setting the pace, but Office is chasing hard, which, in a suite that turns 30 this year, is impressive. Office is a mature, versatile, solid offering with unbeatable industry support that continues to evolve at a satisfying pace. We’re looking forward to seeing where Microsoft goes with its 2019 release.
Microsoft Office sports excellent collaboration features that facilitate home and remote working