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| Microsoft announces Office 2021 and Office LTSC |
Microsoft announced two new versions of Office: Office 2021 for customers and Office LTSC for business customers.
Office 2021 will launch later this year for Windows and Mac OS.
Similar to the previous version of Office 2019, the new version has been developed for users who do not wish to subscribe to the Microsoft 365 cloud edition.
Microsoft has not yet provided full details of all the features and changes for Office 2021. However, the Office release includes LTSC: dark mode support, accessibility improvements, dynamic tables, and XLOOKUP in Excel.
The UI won't see any major changes as Dark Mode is a visually clear change. However, Microsoft initially focused mainly on the Microsoft 365 version of Office.
Office LTSC is Microsoft's clear understanding that not all corporate customers are ready to move to the cloud.
Microsoft 365 (Jared Spataro) said, “It's about reaching customers everywhere. A lot of customers have switched to the cloud in the past 10 months, and that's what happened.
At the same time, our customers have certain scenarios in which they think they cannot move to the cloud.
These specific programs include organized industries that can't change their processes and applications every month, or factories that rely on Office and want temporary releases.
Microsoft has also promised to release another permanent version of Office in the future. However, this will change the price and the way these new releases are supported.
Office LTSC now only supports five years instead of the seven years companies typically provide for Office products.
Prices for Office Professional Plus and Office Standard apps and single apps for business customers increased 10%, and prices for consumers and small businesses in Office 2021 remained unchanged.
Office LTSC support time is exactly the same as Windows support. So Microsoft is adjusting the version table of Office and Windows as well.
The next two versions of Office LTSC and Windows 10 LTSC will be released in the second half of 2021.
Spataro said, although detailed information on the Windows version is not available yet, the release time has been determined for both versions and we are working hard to put them together to make the business easier for the company.
Microsoft now plans to release a preview version of Office LTSC in April and a full version later this year.
However, Office 2021 is not available to consumers in the preview version. Office LTSC and Office 2021 also come with OneNote and include 32-bit and 64-bit versions.