Microsoft Announcement Office 2021

[nlinecomputers]

"Microsoft announces Office 2021, available for Windows and macOS later this year - The Verge" https://www.theverge.com/platform/a...-2021-windows-mac-features-release-date-price

 

[HCHTech]

tldr:

• 2 years since last release as opposed to traditional 3
• 5 years support as opposed to traditional 7
• 10% price increase, so assuming no funny math, $165 for H&S, $275 for H&B
• Didn't say, but IMO higher odds that this is the last perpetual version

 

[timeshifter]

Ugh, so if you need it now you hate to be in that position where you have to go ahead and buy 2019.

 

[britechguy]

Microsoft Office 2013 Lifecycle Information Mainstream Support Ended 04/10/2018 Extended Support Ends 4/2023

Microsoft Office 2016 Lifecycle Information Mainstream Support Ended 10/13/2020 Extended Support Ends 10/2025

Microsoft Office 2019 Lifecycle Information Mainstream Support Ends 10/10/2023 Extended Support Ends 10/2025

WIth over 4 years left of extended support on either Office 2016 or 2019 I wouldn't hesitate to get either. I have never given a flying rats patootie when mainstream support ends. I'm actually still getting updates for Office 2010 on a machine that so happens to have it sitting on it, and it had end of support, supposedly, on 10/13/2020.

The only Office suite program I really worry about security on is Outlook, since it spends its life in intimate contact with cyberspace. The rest, not really. And when you add in that most security suites, including Windows Security, now include scanning for all the Office Suite file formats, it's really no longer an easy or effective infection vector like it once was.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@britechguy You should care when mainstream ends... because there have been several cases where a security update breaks a feature on a Microsoft something or other, and there is no fix. You're just stuck without that feature, because you only get security updates in extended...

Also, there have been a TON of spear phishing campaigns in the last three years that specifically target Word and Excel. That's how many cryptos get around. So yes, those need patched too lest a user double click on the wrong file and BOOM. The vulnerabilities aren't just in Outlook anymore.

 

[britechguy]

@britechguy You should care when mainstream ends... because there have been several cases where a security update breaks a feature on a Microsoft something or other, and there is no fix. You're just stuck without that feature, because you only get security updates in extended...

Also, there have been a TON of spear phishing campaigns in the last three years that specifically target Word and Excel. That's how many cryptos get around. So yes, those need patched too lest a user double click on the wrong file and BOOM. The vulnerabilities aren't just in Outlook anymore.

A) I never said that the vulnerabilities are only in Outlook. I did say that the shields for the vulnerabilities that appear, that do not rely on social engineering, have become myriad. Phishing relies on human action, and there is nothing but vigilance on the part of humans that can or will stop it. Users Themselves Are The Most Substantial Weakness In The Security Chain

B) In the decades I have been using Office (and I'm almost 60, and started in the IT world in the mid-1980s) I have never had feature break (or at least one that I use, but truly, I've never even seen one break for someone else).

Most people do not use the vast majority of the features of any one of the Office Suite Programs. If a critical feature that you use breaks, you update, it's that simple.

If it doesn't break, and you're still getting security patches, those are for the things that the end user cannot protect against.

I don't believe, and never have or will, in worrying about the remotely possible, but the reasonably probable. I also can't and won't worry about attack vectors that rely on the end user to take action for the attack to be successful. The only thing that can be done about those is user education, and I'm not sanguine, after all of these decades, that it's done much because people seem to want to believe, "It could never happen to me," which is the most certain way to increase the probability that it will. You have to apply some critical thinking skills before clicking, opening, etc.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@britechguy You've obviously never watched MSSQL server 2012 die due to a security update. Entire chains of features were removed from the product, and the only way to get them back was to buy a more modern SQL license. MS set that trend on themselves several years ago.

I HAVE had features in Office 2012 break, and force upgrades too. These aren't ethereal events, they happen. Most of the vendors I work with have within the last three years modified their system requirements to mandate software in Microsoft's mainstream support channel, specifically because they can't get help integrating with older products on the dev side anymore.

Now, you can continue to allow irrelevant history to guide your decision making... OR you can realize that Microsoft is a corporate juggernaut actively ramping up pricing with a cohesive strategy to force all of their customers into the subscription model.

As such, I tell my customers you can go sub now, or sub later. The only way to avoid it is to abandon Microsoft's ecosystem entirely.

(You've noted evidence in my favor here... extended life of Office 2019 and 2016 ending on the same day?)

 

[britechguy]

Office 2012

Where is this. I have never seen Office 2012, and you've now referred to it twice.

Your degree of unwarranted certitude is duly noted. As for me, I'm perfectly comfortable allowing decades of direct experience and observation be my guiding principles in decision making.

Not everyone is going with Microsoft's subscription model, and particularly residential and small business customers. And they never will.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Meh typos are typos. Office 15, there... specific enough?

Which would be Office 2013, you're right. Office 2016 and 2019 are both office 16. It remains to be seen if Office 2021 is actually Office 17, or if it's yet another incarnation of 16.

Now to solve integration issues all of my M365 seats are installed in the semi-annual update channel. So I get feature updates for Office twice a year just like Windows 10. By default M365 installs get updated MONTHLY. This breaks integration with 3rd party apps like you wouldn't believe.

Now, if you don't need integration with little things like Quickbooks... you can deal with a broken Office installation. If you're doing real work with your computer, then you need an office installation that;s fully supported. The only way to get that via Microsoft is M365. Though... according to he linked article MS seems to be making 2021 specifically for those that don't want to be on M365. So I guess time will tell.

Given the stupidity I've had to deal with for the last 5 years on Outlook alone, I'm not going to hold my breath. I would LOVE to be wrong and have Microsoft actually properly support per device licensing again. It makes more sense in so many applications.

 

[britechguy]

By default M365 installs get updated MONTHLY. This breaks integration with 3rd party apps like you wouldn't believe.

Which is another reason why some, and it's not a small some, don't want to go this way.

If it becomes as smooth as Windows 10 has become, it might be less concerning, but there are good reasons to hang back now.

One thing that seems to bring us to butt heads frequently is I'm talking about one user demographic and you're largely talking about another. I realize that what might be right for and/or work better for large businesses or other entities might be very different than what does for residental and small business customers. I am always writing with the latter as my focus, and will openly admit that because I do not serve your primary customer demographic I am very ill-equipped to speak about anything related to them. That being said, I think we both have to keep in mind exactly what demographic we're writing about at any given time. The "correct answer" can be almost diametrically opposed because of who it's targeted to.

 

[HCHTech]

While I can clearly see the writing on the wall here (it seems all products will be subscription based sooner or later), I always explain the pros and cons of each choice, and the majority of my residential and SMB customers choose the perpetual version. I would say that the M365 group is expanding, but they are far from the majority. If MS would make the costs more similar, I suspect a lot of folks would move over, but frankly, I think that is most of their decision. M365 costs significantly more over the lifetime of the computer and the benefits of that choice aren't obviously worth that extra cost.

 

[Sky-Knight]

More similar? The family sub is $100 / year for SIX PEOPLE. And the thing about that sub is not the office it's providing, it's the crypto shield that is onedrive. And we haven't gotten into the convenience of it at the same time.

A customer that loses a machine with the above sub, and then watches all their stuff reappear on login to the new one, is a customer for life.

Now that being said... the single user for $70 is NOT attractive.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Exactly and in the business environment you are paying for all the collaboration tools, not just Word and Excel.

 

[HCHTech]

Yes - IF you have enough computers in the home environment, the $99 per year for 6 licenses can compete for sure. I love the onedrive "data recover" scenario as well - when that's in play, it's a very nice thing. Whether the customer places value in that is their decision, just like all of the other benefits. As I said, I explain the pros and cons, they decide.

In the business environment, those collaboration tools have to have value for the business and many times, they do not. I show them and talk about them, then they decide.

 

[Sky-Knight]

If you've got a business that doesn't place value on a file storage system that has built in versioning and archival... you've got a business that won't be around long enough that you should care they're a client.

But I suppose if they are that stupid, score! Make as much as you can while you can, because that stupid pays well.

 

[britechguy]

Yes - IF you have enough computers in the home environment, the $99 per year for 6 licenses can compete for sure.

Which, for the record, is a rare occurrence, at least for me, and I doubt that I'm alone when it comes to the residential or small (and by small I mean Mom and Pop, two, maybe three computers) business.

If and when Microsoft goes subscription only for Office, they will see an exodus, though a slow one, from Office over time for the residential and small business demographic. They have a very strong aversion to monthly/yearly outlay and they like having long term sameness to the maximum extent possible without cost. Given that there are very good, and inexpensive to free, installable competitors to MS Office I fully expect that they'll get an uptick in user base when MS-Office goes subscription only.

And, being one of "those users," I understand their viewpoints, as I hold them, and refuse to apologize for my preferences.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@britechguy Then what you're saying is you're abandoning the Microsoft ecosystem. And that's fine!

But if that's the case, you're not using Office anyway. Office is not the local apps we've known for decades anymore, everything new is about all the collaboration functionality. So if you're not taking advantage of that, because your needs are so simplistic you don't require them. Your reality has condensed so far that you can run your entire reality with the free mobile office suite, and a free dropbox off a tablet.

But I service mostly construction businesses, and teams is a game changer for them.

 

[britechguy]

If you've got a business that doesn't place value on a file storage system that has built in versioning and archival... you've got a business that won't be around long enough that you should care they're a client.

You know, you make some very, very stupid statements to "support" your own blinkered views. Sorry, darlin', but it just ain't true.

 

[Sky-Knight]

You know, you make some very, very stupid statements to "support" your own blinkered views. Sorry, darlin', but it just ain't true.

Ok boomer!

 

[britechguy]

Office is not the local apps we've known for decades

What you seem to refuse to understand is that for a very, very, very great many, it is. (And, of course, I understand that Office has become the "multinational conglomerate" of software, which is not always a good thing.)

Those apps are what they want, and all they want, out of an office suite (no matter whose they go with).

What's important for larger businesses with varied locations and lots of need for collaboration is nowhere near to the same as what's important for the local beauty salon, confectioner, one or two person accountant business, auto mechanic, and the list goes on and on. You seem to want to ignore this, completely ignore this, and you can as far as your own business goes because you don't serve them. Many of us do, and many of us understand that what they want from Office today is pretty much the same thing they wanted from Office 30 years ago, and because that's all they NEED from Office.

You need to understand and accept that fact, and it is a fact.