A new perpetual edition of the productivity suite will be available later this year
Coming soon:
- Office LTSC 2024: available in preview for businesses starting in April.
- Office 2024: consumer edition in late 2024.
More than two years after the release of Office 2021, Microsoft confirms the arrival of a new non-subscription edition of its popular productivity suite. The first details about this update have recently been released.
Office LTSC 2024 will be available starting next month, while a consumer edition will arrive later this year.
Microsoft plans to release this new one-time payment edition of Office for Windows and macOS throughout 2024. This is the first major update to the productivity suite since the release of Office 2021 alongside Windows 11. The price of Office LTSC will increase 10%, while the consumer edition will maintain its current price.
Microsoft’s announcement focused primarily on the Office Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) edition, which will be available in preview for businesses in April. This version is primarily aimed at business systems that cannot maintain the constant internet connections required by the cloud-based version of Microsoft 365. More information about feature updates for the consumer version is likely to be revealed later.
While Microsoft has not gone into detail about the improvements in LTSC 2024, it has confirmed that Excel will receive dozens of new features, including dynamic charts and arrays. The update also improves search and meeting creation tools in Outlook. However, Office 2024 will not include Publisher, as Microsoft plans to discontinue the application in 2026.
It is worth noting that Microsoft has excluded AI-powered tools for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint from the perpetual license edition of Office. This is due to the company’s plans to push subscription-based AI features this year. In fact, Microsoft has included its Copilot AI assistant in Windows 11 23H2, and 24H2 is expected to improve it further, along with other AI features that take advantage of the NPUs in the latest AMD and Intel processors. It seems that Microsoft wants to reserve its new AI features for subscribers, as Office perpetual edition users will not have access to Copilot Pro, an enhanced version of the assistant based on GPT-4 Turbo.
Office 2024 will be compatible with Windows 11, Windows 10, and macOS. It will be available for 32-bit and 64-bit systems. Like previous editions, the LTSC and consumer versions of Office 2024 will receive five years of feature updates during general support, followed by an “extended support” period that only includes security updates. Extended support for Office 2016 and Office 2019 will end in October 2025.
In addition, Microsoft has confirmed its plans to release at least one more perpetual edition of Office in the future.
While the MSRP for Office starts at $149, there are often deals that offer the software for a fraction of that price. At this time, budget-conscious buyers can purchase Office Professional Plus 2019 for $39 and Office 2021 for $45. It is not yet clear when similar deals for Office 2024 might arise.
By: ForAllTechNews