Microsoft began its worldwide release of Office 2016 this week, with its updated features focused on Office 365, Microsoft's cloud-based subscription service.

“The way people work has changed dramatically, and that’s why Microsoft is focused on reinventing productivity and business processes for the mobile-first, cloud-first world,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “These latest innovations take another big step forward in transforming Office from a familiar set of individual productivity apps to a connected set of apps and services designed for modern working, collaboration and teamwork.”

The updates garnered mostly positive feedback from tech review sites, including The Verge, Techradar and PCWorld.

Office 2016 introduces new charts to Excel.

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Reviewers breathed sighs of relief that the features of Word, Excel and PowerPoint remained visually consistent with Office 2013, so users don't have to re-learn the programs' layouts. Word has added some new right-click features, Excel is sporting six new charts and PowerPoint's theme variant feature now allows for faster and easier theme changes. However, the biggest changes to these programs are collaboration-related.

Biggest Changes for Word, PowerPoint and Excel:

Word now allows for real-time co-authoring, which allows multiple users to simultaneously collaborate on a document, where each can see the others' edits happening in real-time. The Verge called this "a solid addition", saying it one-ups Google Docs at its own game.

Word's new real-time co-authoring feature.

PowerPoint also features a new share option, though it doesn't allow for real-time collaboration and users must click a small save icon toward the bottom of the screen for other collaborators' revisions to show up. PCWorld said this feature shows what Microsoft's goals are for online collaboration through PowerPoint, but also how the company is struggling to achieve them.

As for Excel's collaboration-related improvements, PCWorld called the updated program "still indispensable, now more helpful". Excel users now interact with a virtual work space rather than a document, eliminating the need to email a spreadsheet back-and-forth between collaborators. However, like PowerPoint, Excel still lacks real-time collaboration.

The Verge said Office 2016's most interesting addition is the application Sway, which allows users to create websites simply with images and text. The Verge reviewer Tom Warren wrote: "Sway makes it very easy to create something pretty in minutes. It’s all web-based too, so you don’t actually need an application to access Sway. You can insert pictures, videos, tweets, and charts so there are plenty of options. It’s an interesting blend of Word and PowerPoint that creates an interactive webpage as the end result. You don’t even need Office to try it out — it’s all available online, free of charge."

Pricing:

To purchase Office 365, with all the 2016 applications:

• €99/year or €10/month for five PCs or Macs plus five tablets (including iPad, Android or Windows).
• €69/year or €7/month for one PC or Mac plus one tablet
• STUDENT PRICING: €79/four years for two devices (including PCs, Macs, iPads or tablets)
• €149 for one PC

To renew Office 365 to include the 2016 applications:

• €99 for five PCs or Macs plus five tablets
• €69 for one PC or Mac plus one tablet

For a comprehensive collection of all the updates in Office 2016, see Office's website.