Microsoft has pledged a new Office suite, tagged Office 2019, for next year. But other than a nod to the vague 'second half' of 2018, the Redmond, Wash. developer has said nothing of dates.
Microsoft’s Office 2019 release is designed for consumers and businesses who haven’t moved to the cloud-powered Office 365. Office Software Thread, Microsoft releases Office 2019 for Windows and Mac in Technical; I have just gone to install it via Office 365 and it still has version 2016 with no 2019 options. LinkBack About LinkBacks. Office 2019 for Mac, however, will continue to come with an improved version of the existing OneNote package, but for Windows, only Windows 10 users will be allowed to install the productivity suite.
But because Office 365 is, even more than Windows 10, as much a service as software - and because that model requires a predictable schedule of releases, maintenance milestones and support expiration dates - we can anticipate many of the important dates in the transition from present (Office 2016) to future (Office 2019).
To prepare for Office 2019, circle these dates on the enterprise IT calendar.
Summer, 2018
Six weeks ago, Microsoft said, 'Previews of the new products [Office 2019 applications] will start shipping mid-year 2018.'
Computerworld's best guess for the beta? July 10, 2018. That's the scheduled date for the release of what will be coded as the 'Semi-Annual Channel' of Office 365 ProPlus. (ProPlus is the suite that provides rights to the locally installed applications, including Excel, Outlook and Word, for 365 subscribers.)
Because the perpetual licensed version of Office 2019 will be built from code already released as Office 365 ProPlus, it's most likely that Microsoft will use the March 2018 feature upgrade for Office 365 ProPlus subscribers as the basis for Office 2019.
According to Microsoft's Office 365 ProPlus release calendar, the March 2018 feature upgrade will ship March 13, 2018. Then on July 10, 2018, that same upgrade will be issued to the Semi-Annual Channel, the main distribution channel. In Microsoft's vernacular, 'Semi-Annual Channel' represents more stable code that has been tested by some customers between March 13 and July 10, with Microsoft fixing any found bugs.
(Like Windows 10, the first four months or so of each feature upgrade of Office 365 ProPlus is a test-and-fix period; it's labeled with the awkward 'Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted)' because those releases 'are intended to provide enterprises time to pilot and to validate their line-of-business applications, add-ins, and macros with Office 365 ProPlus before Semi-Annual Channel is released.')
By issuing that Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted) build as the preview for Office 2019, Microsoft expands the testing to customers who don't subscribe to Office 365, but gets to offer code that has gone through a partial shakedown outside of the company's confines.
Sept. 11, 2018
Office 2019 is supposed to ship in the 'second half of 2018,' according to Microsoft. But when exactly?
We think the date to remember is next year's 9/11. That's the delivery date for 2018's second feature upgrade. Another Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted) release, it will probably be identified as 1802 using Microsoft's yymm format. (Yes, yes, yes, 1802 signifies February 2018, but Microsoft released the code that became Office 2019 in March. Yes it can be confusing. Don't ask.)
September has another thing going for it, since it was that month in 2015 when Microsoft released Office 2016 to Office 365 customers, offering the new applications as alternatives to the Office 2013 applications. On that same day, Sept. 22, 2015, Microsoft started selling the one-time-purchased 'perpetual' licensed version, also called Office 2016. (Yes, Microsoft's use of the same name for two quite different things yields a big, steaming pot of confusion, .)
Next September makes sense as Office 2019's launch window because the perpetual-license version will be built from code already released as Office 365 ProPlus. In fact, for Office 365 subscribers, Office 2019 is little more than a declaration, a verbal if not virtual sign that names the next iteration. And all that's necessary to prep the one-time purchase version is to take the code that exists at that moment, then build the image file for volume customers to download, or package the retail editions.
September 2019
Approximately a year from its release -- and about 18 months from its actual inception -- the initial Office 2019 build will be knocked off the support list.
Eighteen months is the support lifetime of any individual Office 365 ProPlus feature upgrade, whether it carries an additional label of 'Office 2016,' 'Office 2019,' or 'Office 2028.'
It will be a different situation for Office 2019 than for Office 2016; the latter was not prefaced by a software-as-a-service model, but by the traditionally-developed Office 2013. So, while Microsoft had to announce earlier this year that after February 2017, Office 2013's applications would not be supported for Office 365 subscribers, there will be no need for a similar declaration for Office 2016 apps. They will have already aged out of their Office 365 support.
The same holds true for the Office 2013 application download shutdown Microsoft mandated in late February when it said, 'All 2013 versions of Office 365 client applications ... will no longer be available for installation from the Office 365 Admin Center.' That will be moot for the transition from Office 2016 to 2019, as Microsoft automatically limits Office 365 downloads to the current feature upgrade of the suite.
Early 2024
The perpetual licensed version of Office 2019 will be supported for the usual 10 years - probably until early 2029 - but five years before that, Microsoft will cut off the suite's applications from connecting to any Microsoft-provided service.
Under new rules revealed in April, owners of perpetual-license versions of Office will be able to use those services only during the first half of their 10-year support lifecycle, the portion Microsoft dubs 'mainstream.' Those services include Microsoft-hosted Exchange email, the OneDrive for Business storage service and Teams, the corporate collaboration platform.
Microsoft will enforce this rule starting Oct. 13, 2020, making Office 2019 the first to fall under its mandate. Office 365 ProPlus - the applications from the 2019 suite provided to subscribers - will not be affected by the changes.
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Here’s what we know about Office 2019 for Mac. There’s a matching page about Office 2019 for Windows.
We’ll update this page as new information becomes available.
Before you get too excited
Do NOT buy Office 2019 if you have Office 365 plan like Office 365 Home, Office 365 Personal or an enterprise plan. In other words, you pay for Office as an annual fee.
Office 2019 for Mac is NOT like past versions such as Office 2016, Office 2011 etc. It’s NOT a new version intended for all Microsoft Office users.
Anyone on an Office 365 plan does NOT need Office 2019.
Office 365 ‘subscribers’ have a more advanced version of Microsoft Office already.
Office 2016 for Office 365 customers get regular updates of new and improved features, including cloud-based features that won’t be in Office 2019.
What is Office 2019?
Office 2019 for Windows or Mac are separate versions of Office for anyone who buys the perpetual license.
Perpetual License is what Microsoft calls paying once for the ongoing use of Microsoft Office. Compared to the ‘subscription’ or annual payment model that Microsoft prefers and has been pushing customers towards.
Office 2019 is for non-subscription customers who want some new features but won’t switch to the regularly updated Office software sold via Office 365.
Microsoft wants all customers to ‘subscribe’ to Office because that’s more profitable for the company with a more regular cash flow. But there are a significant number of corporate users who refuse to pay that way or they don’t want the increasingly cloud connected features of the main Office software sold with Office 365 plans. See Microsoft’s dirty little secret about Office 2019.
Who should buy it?
Anyone who wants any of the new/changed features in Office 2019 and is prepared to pay once for essentially fixed feature software.
Unlike the Office 365 subscription releases, Office 2019 will not get any feature updates over time.
Who should NOT buy it?
If you have an Office 365 plan do NOT get Office 2019.
Existing Office software for Office 365 users already have all the features in Office 2019 plus a lot more.
When will it be released?
Office 2019 for Windows and Mac are now available to volume licence and commercial customers.
A detailed and independent look at Windows 10, especially for Microsoft Office.
Fully up-to-date with coverage of the May 2019 major update of Windows 10.
This918 page book shows you important features and details for all serious Windows 10 users.
Individual sales of Office 2019 will start vaguely ‘in a few weeks’ so presumably by mid-October 2018.
A usually reliable source (Amazon) suggest it’ll be sold to consumers from 2 October 2018. See Leaked! Office 2019 consumer release date and prices
Which Products
Office 2019 for Mac will have Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote.
Features
According to Microsoft “Office 2019 includes a meaningful subset of features found in Office 365″. In other words, it has less than the current Office for Mac software sold to Office 365 customers.
There are no cloud-linked features in Office 2019.
Here’s the current feature list from Microsoft, which is not complete, but gives a good idea of what’s in and what’s not in Office 2019
Word
- Focus Mode in Word
- Word Translator
- Improved inking functionality
- Customizable Office ribbons
- Accessibility improvements
Excel
- Funnel charts and 2D maps
- New Excel functions (CONCAT, TEXTJOIN, IFS, SWITCH)
PowerPoint
- Morph transition feature
- Insert and manage Icons, SVG, and 3D models
- Improved roaming pencil case
- 4K video export
- Play in-click sequence in PowerPoint
Office 2019 For Mac Release
Outlook
- @mentions
- Focused inbox
- Office 365 Groups in Outlook * Requires Exchange Online account
- Travel and delivery summary cards
- Send Later to delay or schedule delivery of emails
- Read and delivery receipts
- Email templates
Mac OS requirement
Office for Mac is supported on only two versions of the Mac OS; the current version and the previous version.
That means Office 2019 for Mac will be supported on MacOS ‘Mojave’ (coming later in 2018), ‘High Sierra’ (Sept 2017) and perhaps the earlier ‘Sierra’ release.
Support
Office 2019 for Mac gets five years of support. That’s Microsoft’s standard for Mac products.
Will there be future perpetual license Office releases?
The latest Microsoft comment is:
“We remain committed to on-premises customers and plan to do additional releases post Office 2019.”
That’s not a firm commitment to the future of non-cloud Microsoft Office. Only that Redmond ‘plans’ to have future releases. That doesn’t mean they will.
The hard reality is, if there’s enough corporate demand, Microsoft will reluctantly release an ‘Office 2022’ or similar.
From Redmond’s marketing and pricing it’s little secret that Microsoft wants all customers to pay annual ‘subscriptions’ and will drop perpetual license Office if possible.
Running Office 2019 with Office 2016
You cannot install Office 2019 for Mac to run ‘side-by-side’ with Office 2016 or any earlier version of Office for Mac.
More info
The Microsoft Office 2019 FAQ has the official line on Office 2019 using Microsoft’s own brand of corporate speak and weasel words.
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Ms Office 2019 For Mac Release Date
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