14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft confirmed Office 2021 would launch later this year for Windows and Mac with a one-time purchase option, and this version is specifically aimed at those who don’t want to get a subscription for Microsoft 365.
At the same time, the company has confirmed that Office 2021 wouldn’t be the last on-premises release for the productivity suite, thus confirming that its next release would also come with a non-subscription version.
Of course, no specifics are available at this point, but it’s definitely good news for those who need a powerful productivity suite but where a subscription-based model doesn’t make much sense.
“As with previous releases, Office LTSC will still be a device-based “perpetual” license. We designed it as a specialty product intended for specific scenarios and will increase the price of Office Professional Plus, Office Standard, and the individual apps by up to 10 percent at the time of general availability. And, because we are always asked at release if there will be another one, I’m happy to confirm our commitment to another release in the future,” Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365, said today.
The launch is set for late 2021
However, Microsoft obviously hopes more people would give a try to its subscription-based Office, explaining that the on-premises version misses out on all the new features that are added after the launch.
“Without access to the cloud, Office LTSC will include only a subset of the value found in Microsoft 365 Apps, building on the features included in past releases. New Office LTSC features will include accessibility improvements, capabilities like Dynamic Arrays and XLOOKUP in Excel, dark mode support across multiple apps, and performance improvements across Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. The next version of Office will not ship with the Skype for Business client app, which will be available as a download in the Microsoft Download Center. It will ship with the Microsoft Teams app, allowing customers to enable and trial this experience if they so choose,” Spataro explained.
Office 2021 will launch later this year for both Windows and Mac.