In addition to files, end-users can also save settings, preferences, templates and other elements to the cloud in Office ProPlus, and access them in multiple Internet-connected devices, a tip of the cap to the increasingly mobile workforce and the BYOD (bring-your-own-device) trend.

Tying with those two trends -- mobility and BYOD -- Office ProPlus lets users access the suite in more than the five Windows or OS X computers where they install it. Through a new feature called Office on Demand, users can do a one-time, temporary streaming of the suite and their documents to a borrowed Windows 7 or Windows 8 computer -- such as those in a hotel business center or an airport lounge. The software and files disappear from the borrowed computer once the user logs off.

Microsoft is also vowing that IT administrators will be able to deploy Office in enterprises in a smoother and faster manner through an improvement in the Click-2-Run virtualization technology first used in Office 2010.

"That's definitely an improvement that IT managers will be interested in," said IDC analyst Melissa Webster.

For enterprise and commercial developers, Microsoft has built a new framework for creating Office applications based on web standards and familiar languages that fit in with the suite's use of the cloud. These new apps can be made available via the new Office Store or internally in corporate app repositories, and they are designed to be embedded in new, more organic ways within Word, Excel and the other Office components.