What strange beauty is this? Microsoft commits to two more non-subscription Office editions
- Reference: 1710806467
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/03/19/office_2024_microsoft/
- Source link:
The software giant will deliver two editions of Office this year.
As explained in a [1]post penned by senior director of product marketing for Microsoft 365 TJ Devine, one is called the "Office Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) 2024" and is recommended "for use in exceptional circumstances" and in "niche yet important scenarios." Devine suggested regulated devices that can't be updated, manufacturing devices that never go online, and medical testing machines "that run embedded apps that must stay locked in time" as the exceptional/niche circumstances Redmond thinks this product serves.
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The post mentions Professional Plus, Standard, and Embedded versions of the suite, and the chance to buy its component apps individually too. Prices for all will jump by ten percent over the current comparable version of Office 2019.
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Devine didn't mention what the new suite will comprise. The current edition includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access and Publisher, but Microsoft has retired Publisher and it won't appear in the 2024 edition. That leaves the suite short at least one app, but with a price increase that probably still has buyers a little better off – given surging inflation since the release of the 2019 edition.
Devine was clear that Office LTSC 2024 is not aimed at folk who like the idea of buying apps outright without accompanying cloud services. "The future of work in an AI-powered world is on the cloud," Devine wrote, before suggesting that users of perpetually licensed Office 2016 and Office 2019 should hurry up and acquire a subscription before support for the old suites ends in 2025.
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Office 2024 LTSC will be supported for five years, so Microsoft hasn't thrown away the upgrade treadmill entirely.
The suite will enter preview next month and go on sale later this year.
[6]Microsoft license shuffle means Power Apps users could break the bank
[7]Euro-cloud consortium issues ultimatum to Microsoft: Fix your licensing or else
[8]Microsoft Publisher books its retirement party for 2026
[9]UK Cabinet Office hits pause on £9M Microsoft deal
The second product Microsoft has in the works is Office 2024 – a refreshed on-prem edition of the pay-once-use-forever flagship productivity bundle.
Office 2024's price won't increase, and a version will be created for macOS.
Devine promised "more details about new features included in Office 2024 closer to general availability," without saying when that will be.
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His post also promised that more info about future versions of on-premises Visio and Project will land in "coming months."
Microsoft will of course do this all again at some unknown point in the future, as Devine pledged "our commitment to another release in the future" – but only for Office LTSC. ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-blog/upcoming-preview-of-microsoft-office-ltsc-2024/ba-p/4082963
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Zfkb6BEIf6kVi0iAxoP1HAAAAAI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zfkb6BEIf6kVi0iAxoP1HAAAAAI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zfkb6BEIf6kVi0iAxoP1HAAAAAI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zfkb6BEIf6kVi0iAxoP1HAAAAAI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/15/microsoft_power_apps_licensing/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/08/cispe_microsoft_licensing_complaint/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/20/microsoft_publisher_eol/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/15/cabinet_office_microsoft/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zfkb6BEIf6kVi0iAxoP1HAAAAAI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: First hit is always free-ish.
+1 for LibreOffice.
Recently got a new PC and after uninstalling from the old laptop MS refused to activate the Office licence on the new one, kept trying to shove a subscription down my throat.
Installed LibreOffice and haven't looked back. It's a little less polished, but can do everything I could in Office, and haven't had compatibility issues with any docs.
In the legal field it's comon to have a software package that drives Word. For example customer database entry + word template -> custom word doc. How does this scenario work in a web-only situation?
Re: comon to have a software package that drives Word
It would be more reliable and more efficient, instead of trying to drive a GUI app via a script, to directly use a document-format library to create and manipulate the documents.
For ODF, for example, you have libraries like odfpy that let you directly work with documents compatible with LibreOffice, without having to go through any LibreOffice GUI apps. I use this for my own time and billing system.
With the right license subscription, you still have locally installed versions of the applications. So if you rely on plugins, you wouldn't go web only.
Trying To Stem The Tide Of Defections To LibreOffice
Remember, a large company like Microsoft is never going to do anything out of the goodness of its heart†. It’s always going to be about profit, and about heading off competitors that might be seen to be eating into that profit.
†assuming it has one
Re: Trying To Stem The Tide Of Defections To LibreOffice
Libre Office has been getting significantly better at reading Office docs in my limited experience. And it's quite good in its own right as well.
It is not that hard to build a good (e.g.) word processor. Most of the "features" added by MS to Word since 2000 have been useless decoration with little practical benefit. But that's just my personal opinion.
Re: Trying To Stem The Tide Of Defections To LibreOffice
I would go further and say they actually detract from the product, which is why I still use Word 2000...
Re: Trying To Stem The Tide Of Defections To LibreOffice
“getting significantly better at reading Office docs”
That’s the point. New Office needed from time to time to selectively break this or that feature on conversion to Libre Office.
First hit is always free-ish.
Enslaving a new generation, why not? Or people could just use LibreOffice, a perfectly usable solution to replace Office for the past 20 years already.
I've been working/consulting in enterprise IT space and have used Linux for the past 25 years, where 20 of that full-time personally using a Linux desktop, LibreOffice has always been exceedingly just fine to use, and something I use daily. People need for day to day probably 5% of what any office-suite does, and for that most any other solution is fine, and open-source is best for trust. After using LibreOffice/OpenOffice for so long, moving back to real MS Office on a customer provided device annoys me greatly.