I have been wondering when I would upgrade to a new version of Office but never felt compelled. Of interest, I would go to the MS site every 6 month – wanting to upgrade, ultimately being disappointed. Why would I when the current version of Office for Mac is still 2011?

While on the beach this holiday, it finally became worthwhile for 3 reasons:

• If you buy Office Home you get it across 5 machines, 5 iPads and 5 iPhones.
• You get a new version of Outlook for Mac that actually works with GMAIL. Why Microsoft is not marketing this far and wide is beyond me? I had to dig to find that information. It should be front and center on their marketing.
• The clincher – 1TB of online storage PER USER. No more backing up any machine at that level.

How Dropbox, Box or the others will compete is beyond me? At that size I can put my entire finished photo library into the cloud and still have lots of room.

I am impressed. This is the first Microsoft product I have bought in 3 years as our XBOXs have been relegated to the archives – replaced by Steam and a PC lives on, in the basement, fighting off viruses with good old reliable Windows 7.

Microsoft is fortunate that Windows (7) is the best platform for Steam or that basement PC would be lonely. Although those days are numbered, IF (big IF) the Linux based Steam OS matures.