Microsoft Office 2019 release date is Oct. 2, 2018 (perpetual license). This is the license type where you purchase it once, to be installed on just one device and can run it as long as you like. The other type of license is a subscription from Office 365 where you pay monthly or annually for use of the software. A single user subscription license can be installed on up to 5 PCs or Macs, 5 tablets (Windows, iPad, and Android), and 5 phones, per user. Office 2016 perpetual licenses are no longer available for sale as of August 30, 2018.
There are a few important points to note about the new Office 2019 release:
- Microsoft have increased pricing by 10% from 2016 to 2019 (perpetual licenses only).
- Office 2019 will not be compatible with Windows 7 or Windows 8.
- Office 2019 will be platform agnostic, meaning it will run on any operating system type, including Windows, Mac, Linux
Microsoft has also announced that perpetual license versions of Office will not be able to connect to Office 365 services once mainstream support has ended. This means that even though a version is still under extended support (security patches only provided), it will not be able to connect to Office 365. As for Office 2016 perpetual licenses, this means they will no longer connect to Office 365 after mainstream support ends in October 2020. Having said this, Office 2013 is currently still supported with full functionality on Office 365, despite mainstream support having ended in April of this year.
One might speculate that Office 2019 may be the last perpetual license version Microsoft releases, pushing all customers to Office 365.
New features coming in the Office 2019 release (perpetual version) are listed below. Note that those using the Office suite via an Office 365 subscription, will already have most of these features, since these users receive ongoing updates. Perpetual license users don’t receive major feature updates until they upgrade to a newer version of Office.
Office 2019 Release New Features:
Word
“Get work done easier”
Black theme
Office sounds
Learning tools captions and audio descriptions
Text to speech
Improved inking functionality
Accessibility improvements
Excel
“Perform better data analysis”
Funnel charts and 2D maps
New Excel functions and connectors
Publish Excel to PowerBI
PowerPivot enhancements
PowerQuery enhancements
PowerPoint
“Create more impactful content”
Zoom capabilities for ordering of slides within presentations
Morph transition feature
Insert and manage Icons, SVG, and 3D models
Improved roaming pencil case
Outlook
“Manage email more efficiently”
Updated contact cards
Office 365 Groups*
@mentions
Focused inbox
Travel and delivery summary cards
*Requires Exchange online account
If you would like BSC to review your computer equipment and put a plan in place for replacements and upgrades, contact us today. We’ll audit what you have and explain your options.
