Although Microsoft Office has been available on macOS for quite some time, only now has it officially become part of the actual Mac App Store.
The news doesn't come as a surprise. Microsoft had promised to bring Office apps to the Mac App Store by the end of 2018, and now it seems to be honoring its word, albeit with a slight delay.
Microsoft Office On Mac
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and OneDrive are now available on the app store, all included as part of the Microsoft Office 365 bundle. Do note that an Office 365 subscription is required to start using Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
To be clear, these apps are the same ones a person can download from Microsoft's website, but now they're available as a neat package from the Mac App Store directly. While that doesn't introduce a world of difference, the biggest benefit is that all the apps will be automatically updated via the app store, far better than using Microsoft's AutoUpdate tool that's typically used to update Office software on Mac.
"We are excited to welcome Microsoft Office 365 to the all new Mac App Store in macOS Mojave," said Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, in a statement. "Apple and Microsoft have worked together to bring great Office productivity to Mac users from the very beginning. Now, with Office 365 on the Mac App Store, it's easier than ever to get the latest and best version of Office 365 for Mac, iPad and iPhone."
All Thanks To Bundles
Selling Microsoft Office apps as a bundle wouldn't have been possible on the older version of the Mac App Store because the store simply didn't support subscription bundles. In fact, according to Shaan Pruden, senior director of worldwide developer relations at Apple, the company worked with Microsoft to rework this, overhauling the Mac App Store so to accommodate several apps rolled into a subscription package.
"One of the features that we brought specifically in working with Microsoft was the ability to subscribe to bundles, which is obviously something that they would need in order to bring Office 365 to the Mac App Store," explained Pruden.
Microsoft sells Office 365 subscriptions as a package of apps, and the company didn't want to change the experience by forcing people to download each program individually, explained Jared Spataro, Microsoft's corporate VP for Office 365.
Again, subscribing to Office 365 bundles was still possible previously, but now, as Spataro says, it's all integrated into one seamless experience.
An Office 365 subscription is $69 for an individual or $99 for a household.
