Microsoft has announced it is rolling out a new project management and collaboration app called Planner to all Office 365 subscribers for free from today.

Similar to Trello in concept, Planner enables users to organize projects into “buckets”, or collections of tasks that can then be dragged and dropped between buckets in the project interface.

Planner has a marked emphasis on team collaboration: tasks can be assigned to individual team members and users can get a visual overview of task responsibilities, progress, and upcoming deadlines.

The company has been trialling the app through a select few customers since September, but the planned rollout “over the next several weeks” marks the app’s official entrance into the standard Office suite of apps.

Existing Office users needn’t do anything to access the app, as the tile should appear in the Office 365 launcher as soon as it becomes available.

In recent months Apple has been including a subscription option for Microsoft Office 365 in all iPad ordering processes on its website, a move that initially raised a few eyebrows, since Apple usually positions its iWork suite as a better alternative to Microsoft’s Office apps.

A one-year, single-license Office 365 subscription on Apple’s website costs $69.95. A five-license subscription costs $99.95 and a four-year, two-license University download comes in at $79.95.
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Source: MAC ROUMORS