Clients in Office 365

Office 365 ProPlus provides organizations with the ability to use Office 2013 as a subscription. Subscriptions are assigned on a per-user basis, allowing each user to install Office on up to five computers. There are many advantages to Office 365 ProPlus, including allowing administrators to manage the installation from an on-premises or Internet source, always up to date clients, and so on.

Note:
On a non-subscription basis, Office 365 supports Office 2013, Office 2010, Office 2007 SP2, Office for Mac 2011, Office 2008 for Mac, and Microsoft Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition. You can review the Content roadmap for Office 365 ProPlus for a comprehensive review of Office 365 ProPlus.

The Lync client should be deployed on each computer that will connect to Lync Online. You may choose to have your users install the application themselves or deploy via software distribution. For full functionality with Lync Online, the Lync 2013 client should be used and is included in Office 365 ProPlus.

Important:
Lync Online does not support IP phones.

Outlook 2013, Outlook 2010, and Outlook 2007 with SP2 are the supported Outlook clients for Office 365.

The features only available with Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2010 include:

1. Conversation View
   
2. MailTips
   
3. Find a room
   
4. Text message integration with Windows Phone
   
5. Ability to remove (mute) yourself from conversations.
   

For a complete description of Outlook 2013 features, see What’s New in Outlook 2013.

Although Office 365 supports Outlook 2007 SP2, some functions available in Outlook 2010 may not be available in Outlook 2007 SP2.

Note:
Identity federated users will be required to check the “save my password” option when initially configuring Outlook 2007 SP2. If a user changes their password, they may be required to reenter their password Outlook and check the box again.

If you plan to distribute clients and client updates in your organization, you should review the Deployment options for Office 365 ProPlus and the Deployment methods for Office 2013 depending on which version of Office you intend to use in your organization. There are some differences between the Office 365 and Office 2013 SKUs, including the installation requirements, installation restrictions (such as the ability to install in Remote Desktop Services environments), and security features. There is more information to Compare security features in Office 365 and Office 2013 SKUs.

For smaller deployment projects, Microsoft at no charge provides the Office 365 desktop setup, an application which installs a set of required features and updates to each PC that uses rich clients (such as Office 2013) and connects to the Office 365 service.

After the Office 365 desktop setup is installed, it automatically detects when new updates are necessary and installs them on the computer.

Note:
The Office 365 desktop setup package is not an authentication or sign-in service and should not be confused with single sign-on. For more information, see Set up your desktop for Office 365.

The web experience requires a recent version of many of the following main stream web browsers:

• Internet Explorer 7 or later
  
• Firefox 3 or later
  
• Chrome 3.0.195.27 and later versions
  
• Safari 3 or later for Mac OS 10.5
  

Office Web Apps give you more flexibility to stay connected to your work over the web. Even when working away from the office, you can still have online access to your work and a core Office features such as reading and editing capabilities.

Outlook Web App is a web-based version of Outlook. Outlook Web App provides most of the same features and functionality that Outlook 2013 has. In addition to email, Outlook Web App provides the following functionality:

• Integrated instant messaging and presence
  
• Mailbox access delegation
  
• Search filters and favorites
  
• Side-by-side calendar view
  
• Shared nickname cache with mobile devices
  
• Inbox rules
  

The Windows 8 Mail app is a touch-optimized application that is included with Windows 8 and Windows RT. For more information about the app and to set up email, see Set up email in Windows 8 Mail.