Until now, Microsoft has been offering its users the option to subscribe to Office 365 for a monthly fee. By subscribing, you would get the cloud-based version of Office along with all the latest updates. This was appealing to some – but the majority of users weren’t really happy about it. So, Microsoft had to find a solution. The solution and answer to the question “Will There Be a Microsoft Office 2021?” is “Yes” because Microsoft has officially announced two brand new versions of Office.
Two New Office Versions
One of the two versions, named Office LTSC – Long Term Servicing Channel, is for commercial use primarily. The other version is designed for personal use and named Office 2021. However, no additional information about the potential features was announced. But Microsoft is planning to release a preview in April this year, and we will probably have a clearer picture of what Microsoft LTSC will bring to the table.
Additional Features
Some of the things that you could expect Microsoft LTSC to implement into their software include things like:
- Dynamic arrays
- XLOOKUP in Excel
- Improved accessibility features
- Support for improved dark mode
The Office 2021 and Office LTSC versions will include OneNote and the option to choose from a 32 and a 64-bit variant.
There’s More to Come
Microsoft Word is going to introduce a new feature in March 2021, and we are hoping that it will find its way into the new Office 2021 and Office LTSC. That new feature for Word is going to be able to predict sentences depending on the words that you write. We already saw this prediction feature in the cloud version of Outlook.
The release date for Office 2021 is set for the 2nd half of the year, and it will be supported by macOS and Windows 10. The prices for the two versions of Office are going to be identical to those for Microsoft Office 2019. The student version of the 2019 Office was priced at $149.99, and the business version was $249.99.
The difference from the subscription payment method is that customers who purchase Office 2021 will now be able to buy a perpetual licence. After purchasing this licence, the customer is granted support for five years. On the other hand, Office LTSC must be purchased individually for every device, and the difference is that the licence does not need to be renewed after the payment.
Besides the two new versions, Microsoft will still offer Office 365 for those who prefer the cloud solution.