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Exchange Online vs Outlook 365 vs Office 365 vs outlook.com

Anonymous
2022-01-12T01:45:50+00:00

I have a lot of customers talking about using "Outlook 365", but I can find no such product. Could someone clarify? As far as I understand:

Exchange Online is the product you use for your organisation's email services in the cloud and is available as a standalone subscription or in Microsoft 365 plans. Outlook in those plans is just the email client.

Outlook 365 doesn't exist and people generally are referring to the Exchange Online service or the Microsoft 365 Outlook email client. I see the Microsoft 365 "for home" plans include Outlook but not Exchange and the "for business" plans include Outlook and Exchange? Is the difference that Exchange offers extra features for organisations like the ability to connect via SMTP/IMAP, use your own domain, shared calendar resources, etc?

Office 365 has been renamed to Microsoft 365 and is the suite of Office apps, which includes the Outlook email client and possibly Exchange Online. Even though you can still go to https://outlook.office.com/ or https://outlook.office365.com/, which are the same service (right?).

outlook.com is a standalone product evolved from hotmail.com and a completely different product to the Exchange service and the Outlook client.

Thanks!

Outlook | Web | Outlook on the web for business | Email

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Anonymous
2022-01-12T07:07:34+00:00

Dear dtlhlbs,

Thanks for choosing Microsoft community!

I have read your question carefully and done some research, please kindly refer to following suggestions:

  • About your first question, Exchange Online is part of the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suite of products. You can also get more details here: Exchange Online | Microsoft Docs and Compare Microsoft Exchange Online Plans
  • About your second question, Outlook is an app where you can enjoy sending and receiving mail and some other features, it comes in two forms, one is outlook client and the other is the web version (OWA), and Exchange has many features, such as exchange's archiving function：Exchange Online Archiving service description - Service Descriptions | Microsoft Docs and federated deployment capabilities：Exchange Server hybrid deployments | Microsoft Docs
  • About your third question, Microsoft 365 includes everything you know in Office 365. Microsoft 365 is designed to help people and businesses achieve more with innovative Office apps, intelligent cloud services, and world-class security. Office 365 is a set of cloud based business applications like Exchange, Office Apps, SharePoint, OneDrive. It is a part of Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 is Office 365 with Windows 10 (OS) and the Enterprise Mobility Suite (Suite of Security and Management apps). Choosing Microsoft 365 of Office 365 will be quite tricky, but for most, it might come down to price. If you're looking to save, then Office 365 is the way to go, as it includes most apps and services you need a more balanced price. However, if you want advanced security tools, and want to manage your devices on your own, then Microsoft 365 will be the best route.
  • About your last question, get free Outlook email and calendar, plus Office Online apps like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Sign in to access your Outlook, Hotmail or Live email account. Outlook.com is a free personal email service from Microsoft that doesn't scan your email for the purpose of serving you ads. Automatically file emails and share photos easily. Please get more details in this article: Outlook – free personal email and calendar from Microsoft (bingj.com)

Hope this can help you, if there is any deviation in my understanding, please forgive me and provide me with more details, I am more than willing to continue to help you! I wish you all the best!

Best regards,

Kerry

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-01-20T07:13:18+00:00

    Dear dtlhlbs,

    Has your problem solved? Hope this helps. Please feel free to let us know if you have any questions about this. I’ll be happy to help. Hope you have a wonderful day!

    Best regards,

    Kerry

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