Business Applications and Services

SharePoint Server and Project Server will receive updates in May 2016, and the Office suite, Exchange Server, and Lync Server (renamed Skype for Business Server) received updates in 2015. The on-premises software versions will continue to incorporate improvements of Microsoft’s Office 365 hosted services and subscription software. (See the illustration “Office 365 Software and Services“.)

The 2016 versions of SharePoint and Project Server will require recent or planned versions of Windows Server and SQL Server, so many organizations will have to upgrade infrastructure to deploy them on-premises. (See the illustration “Application Versions Supported on Recent Platforms” and the sidebar “What’s New in Business Applications and Services“.)

Office Clients

The Office suites for Windows are Microsoft’s most widely used client applications for business. They enable document editing, data access and manipulation, e-mail, presentation, and collaboration on Windows PCs. The most important suites for large organizations are Office Professional Plus, Office Standard, and Office 365 ProPlus. Office Professional Plus and Office Standard, licensed Per Device, are available through volume licensing programs exclusively. The Office 365 ProPlus suite is sold on a Per-User subscription basis and consists of the same applications as Office Professional Plus. Office Professional Plus 2016 suites start with the same features as Office 365 ProPlus, but will diverge over time as the Office 365 ProPlus suite receives additional updates and new features. These suites include combinations of the following applications: