[German]There have been rumors about a Microsoft Office 2024 for some time (see Leak: New Office 2024, new Windows 12 are indirectly confirmed?). Now Microsoft has officially announced Microsoft Office 2024 and Microsoft Office LTSC 2024, and the public preview is coming next month (April 2024).
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Microsoft's favorite horse is of course Office 365 or Microsoft 365, where Office applications are offered as a subscription version and have to be paid for monthly. But many users and companies continue to demand a purchase license, where the software can be paid for once and then used for the support period. Microsoft Office 2021 was the last version to be released with a perpetual license, but this will expire in 2026.
A few hours ago, Microsoft officially announced the preview program for Microsoft Office 2024 and Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 in the Techcommunity post Upcoming preview of Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 for "next month", i.e. April 2024.
Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 for enterprises
Microsoft 365 offers cloud-based apps, security and storage, and is the better choice for customers, also in terms of the use of generative AI, Redmond is certain. However, there are some (incorrigible) customers in niches who still require a truly long-term service channel.
In the finest bullshit manner, Microsoft lists regulated devices that cannot accept feature updates for years, process control devices in manufacturing that are not connected to the Internet and special systems such as medical test devices that run embedded apps that must remain time-bound as scenarios. These scenarios listed by Microsoft are of course absolute nonsense – I'm curious about medical test devices with five years of Office support – just like the process control devices in manufacturing that have no Internet access. They all run for tens of years longer than the 5 years of support that Microsoft offers for Office.
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For these special cases, Microsoft continues to offer and support the Office Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC), Redmond writes in the Techcommunity article. The preview for the upcoming Office LTSC version for enterprise customers, Microsoft Office LTSC 2024, is due to start next month (i.e. April 2024). The general availability of this Office version is set to follow later in the year.
Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 will only include some of the apps contained in Microsoft 365 Apps. It can be assumed that Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, (presumably Project) and Word are on board (see screenshot above). Microsoft has announced the following functions and new features:
- New options for creating meetings and improvements to searching in Outlook,
- Dozens of new Excel features and functions, including dynamic charts and arrays,
as well as improved performance, security and accessibility.
Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 will not ship with Microsoft Publisher, as this product is being discontinued. Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 will also not roll out a Microsoft Teams app, but this can be downloaded separately.
Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 also lacks the cloud-based functions of the Microsoft 365 apps, such as real-time collaboration, AI-driven automation in Word, Excel and PowerPoint or cloud-supported security and compliance functions. To subscribe to Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 does not qualify – Microsoft 365 is required. This means that Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 will be a selling point if companies cannot use AI and cloud functions.
Microsoft will offer device-based licensing with extended offline access for Microsoft Office LTSC 2024. Redmond envisions this variant of "Microsoft 365" for scenarios such as computer labs and submarines that require something other than a user-based, always-online solution.
Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 is available via a device-based "perpetual" license and gets five years of support under the Fixed Lifecycle Policy (which is of course an absolutely long time for submarines). The support period is based on the support period for Windows 11 LTSC, which will also be launched later in 2024.
Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 will be available on both Windows 10 and Windows 11 as well as on the Apple Mac. And because they are confident in the product, Microsoft will increase the price of Office LTSC Professional Plus, Office LTSC Standard, Office LTSC Embedded and the individual applications by up to 10% at the time of general availability. At the same time, Redmond announced that there will be another version after Office 2024 – so Microsoft Office will also be available as a perpetual license after 2029.
Microsoft intends to support the deployment of Office LTSC and Microsoft 365 Apps on different computers within the same company via a common set of deployment tools.
Office 2024 for Consumers
Microsoft is also planning to release a new version of Office for home users in the course of 2024. This version, known as Microsoft Office 2024, will also be supported for five years after purchase. Here, Microsoft intends to maintain the price for these products, i.e. it will be based on the prices for previous Office versions. Further details on the new functions in Office 2024 will be announced shortly before general availability.
However, as support for Office 2016 and Office 2019 will expire in October 2025, Microsoft is encouraging these customers to switch to Microsoft 365 with a cloud subscription. This would also allow them to tap into the transformative power of AI with Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft's marketing folks write.
Personally, however, I ask myself why a private user should switch to Microsoft Office 2024 or Microsoft 365 – a LibreOffice is free and does the job – Softmaker Office 2024 should be much cheaper and is largely compatible.
