Best standalone Office suite available
February 29, 2020

Best standalone Office suite available

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Office 2016

Office 2016 is being used both at the organization level and also the departmental level. It is mainly used by those that cannot/choose not to run a subscription Office product (such as Office 365). This is also used in cases where there are shared computers (such as a kiosk), where the subscription-based Office will not work. It addresses the business problem of having an Office application suite that would be best for the situations mentioned above.
  • One thing is does well is it offers live/real-time collaboration. This is especially helpful when there are multiple users working on documents, etc. and changes can be made in real-time, without having to close files.
  • Another benefit with Office 2016 is it's integrated with the cloud. This makes it beneficial to users, in that they can store and share files from the cloud (with applications such as OneDrive, Sharepoint, etc.), and can work with these files even in offline mode
  • One area for improvement is in the upfront expense of licensing. Since the licensing is a one-time purchase (and is not subscription-based), the cost of a license is pretty expensive. The cost of licensing should be cheaper, especially given the fact that this Office 2016 may be used by those that don't need the full functionality of a subscription-based product such as Office 365.
  • The support options are lacking, as compared to a subscription-based product such as Office 365. Support is only available when installing Office 2016. Given the expensive upfront cost of licensing, support should be extended somewhat past the install stage
  • One positive impact it has had was in the simplicity of installing/running the Office 2016 suite. This is very similar to most Office versions prior to 2016, and prior to Office 365.
  • Another positive impact it has had was in being able to collaborate with others while using the software. Office 2016 offers good collaboration tools, such as its integration with OneDrive.
  • A negative impact it's had was not having the ability to install this across multiple devices, being that one license of Office 2016 is good for one device. Nowadays, users have multiple devices to work on, and having access to Office on all devices helps them to work more efficiently.
For certain situations there is a benefit to the "standalone" package of Office 2106, vs. a subscription-based product like Office 365. Especially in the case where there are shared computers, or computers that are used as a kiosk, Microsoft Office 2016 would be one of the few options to use in order to run the Office suite. In these situations, there may not be a need for a subscription-based product.
The support options for Office 2016 are very good, being that it is a Microsoft product, so the usual support options (web, email, phone, Knowledgebase, etc.) are available to users. What is not good though, from a support standpoint, is the fact that support for Office 2016 is only good for the initial install. After that, support options directly from Microsoft would come at a cost.

Do you think Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued) delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued)'s feature set?

Yes

Did Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued) go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Microsoft Office 2016 (discontinued) again?

Yes

Microsoft Office 2016 is well suited for companies/organizations that want the Office products, and either don't have a need to have a subscription-based product or don't want to pay the ongoing costs for a license subscription. It is less suited for organizations that want an Office product that will get the latest software updates/patches/feature upgrades, as Office 2016 is not geared for that. It is a one-time purchase, and for users to upgrade to the next version, they would have to buy a license for that.