Although Microsoft is doing their best to move from the perpetual license business to subscription software, they are still releasing perpetual versions of their core business software. Today, at their annual Ignite conference, the company announced that Office 2019 will be released during the second half of 2018.
Aside from making wonder what they’ll announce next year – given they’ve told us what they’ll put out in 2018 with 2019 branding – it smacks to me of making sure they had a “big” announcement to make this year.
With new features being added routinely to Office, if you’re an Office 365 subscriber, releasing a new perpetual version isn’t likely to lead to any stunning new revelations. I think the days of seeing a massive step change in form and function are behind us, replaced with regular updates that offer incremental changes that are easier for users to adapt to.
But not all businesses have moved to cloud or subscription software so having some idea of the long term roadmap for perpetual versions is helpful for planning.
Microsoft said the new version will offer new features is the flagship Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications.
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