Microsoft has announced plans to launch a consumer version of Office 2021, a standalone version of Microsoft 365 that will have some, but not all of the features of Microsoft’s permanent update cloud productivity service. This could be the first standalone version of Office to ship with Microsoft Teams as a standard feature.
Microsoft will launch Office 2021 for personal and small business users “later this year,” Microsoft said in a blog on Thursday night. Microsoft said it does not plan to change the prices for this new release, meaning that the cheapest version of Office 2021 will be $ 150, the price that Microsoft charges for Microsoft Office Home and Student 2019. (This version does not include Microsoft Outlook, only Word, Excel and PowerPoint.) There will be versions for Mac and Windows, Microsoft said.
Since Microsoft started releasing its standalone versions or, as you call them, “one-time” or “perpetual” purchases of its Office software, they have shipped with a limited set of features and support. They are designed for customers who feel that continuous updates to a Microsoft 365 subscription do not add value to their purchase, or that they cannot or do not want to pay for a continuous subscription. Office 2021 will be supported for five years, Microsoft said.
The Microsoft blog post declined to say which features would be included or excluded from the consumer version of Office 2021. Microsoft’s commercial version, known as the Microsoft Office Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC), may offer some clues, however. This version will include accessibility improvements, features like Dynamic Arrays and XLOOKUP in Excel, support for dark mode in various applications and performance improvements in Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint, Microsoft said. The next version of Office will not ship with the Skype for Business client application, which will be available for download from the Microsoft Download Center. It will ship with the Microsoft Teams application, “allowing customers to enable and test this experience if they wish,” added Microsoft.
Unlike the consumer version of Office, whose price remains unchanged, Microsoft has said it will increase the price of its LTSC versions – Office Professional Plus, Office Standard and individual Office applications – by up to 10 percent at the time of general availability at the second half of 2021.
Microsoft’s Office 365 corporate vice president, Jared Spataro, formally confirmed that there would be a new version of Office LTSC in the future, but did not make the same explicit promise for the consumer version.