No One Works 365 Days A Year

You may have noticed Microsoft has made seismic shifts to simplify its product offering and strategy over the last couple of years. Regarding the Microsoft 365 moniker; I can imagine the arguments in the board meetings about these decisions. Would changes be disruptive or would they help the market understand what product they needed?

Why The Name Transformation?

Microsoft customers had a difficult time deciding which product was right for them. For example, the mid-tier business suite was called: Office 365 Business Premium but the premium tier suite was called: Microsoft 365 Business.

See any problems there? Now add to the confusion: Office 365 Business Essentials: had more cloud services than Office 365 Business.

How did Microsoft solve this? They renamed everything Microsoft 365 Business. That’s it. And depending on the tier of service and extension of offering, they completed the name with: Basic, Standard, or Premium.

Makes a lot more sense doesn’t it? I’m convinced it’s a challenge for existing customers, but it makes more sense for the rest of us.

But There’s Still A Problem With The Name

Microsoft believes their product name changes are a thing of the past but I’m not sure. I know there are 365 days in a year and that’s what the vibe Microsoft is shooting for. There are also plenty of egos that want the world to know they are pulling 80-hour workweeks. But let’s do some math. NOBODY is in the office 365 days a year. Normal people are looking at something closer to 261. Microsoft 261 Business doesn’t quite have the same pop to it. What if we worked extra – 6 days a week, and still take time off for the holidays. Well, that’s 297. Marketing wouldn’t go for it. We could round it up and go with 300. What do you think? You like it?

Office 300 Business – What’s The Ideal Work-Life Balance Anyway?

Where did 40 hours / 5 days a week – come from? There’s a really listenable story about this. Here’s the TLDR:

Workweeks used to be a lot longer than 40 hours, but by the late 19th century, they started to shrink to something closer to 60. Workweeks kept shrinking and then scientists decided to study worker productivity. They noticed that 10 hours on a high-speed assembly line was tiring and workers were getting sketchy. Then, in the 1920s, Henry Ford adopted the eight-hour workday. This was good for productivity and it was a convenient number to run his factories 24 hours a day. Finally, it took the Great Depression to make 40 hours the standard. The Government saw a shorter workweek as a way to fight unemployment by spreading labor out to more people.

There ya go. You can thank scientists, Ford, and the Fed for the 261. I could keep going – have you heard of The 4-Hour Workweek? 
I’ll stop. Microsoft would never go for Office 26 anyway. Regardless of the number of days you are in the office, remember somebody, somewhere is working, and everybody needs Office 365 Support.