Microsoft Office and OneDrive are a really good deal, it's time to give them another look

If you are in the market for productivity software, cloud storage, or both it's time to give Microsoft another look. Microsoft's OneDrive offers 1TB of storage for $7/month, while competitors Dropbox, Google Drive, and Apple's iCloud all cost $10. However, Microsoft's 1TB plan also includes access to Office 365. This is a great deal for productivity software and cloud storage that the competition simply cannot match.

I used Microsoft Office for many years when school and work required it. Free solutions Google Docs/Sheets/Slides and Open Office were sufficient for my personal use.

I recently got a new work Mac and used Apple Pages/Numbers/Keynote that come free with new Macs for a few months. Ultimately, I reverted to Office because Apple's software isn't 100% compatible with Microsoft's (which all of my colleagues use) and Microsoft's software is superior, particularly Excel and Outlook.

I opted for an Office 365 subscription over a one-time purchase and this is when I discovered Office 365 includes 1TB of OneDrive storage. This can be used to back up photos, documents, and other files from a computer or mobile device. This makes it very attractive when compared to iCloud or competing cloud storage solutions, especially for people that use an iPhone and a Windows PC, as opposed to someone who uses an iPhone and a Mac. iCloud only comes with 5GB of free storage, which is enough to backup my iPhone's settings and passwords.

It is in Microsoft's strategic interests to get as many users as they can on an Office 365 subscription. They've come up with a very powerful and valuable bundle, one that their primary competition simply cannot meet for business or advanced users - not yet, anyway.