Office 2019 vs. Office 365: What’s Really Happening
Microsoft’s release of Office 2019 this week
<https://www.thurrott.com/cloud/office-365/176084/office-2019-for-windows-and-mac-lands-today>has
triggered a bit of confusion in the user community. Your questions are
understandable, as this release marks an important change in the way
that Microsoft makes and sells its office productivity solutions.
And if this release is confusing to you, take heart: It’s confusing to
just about everyone, myself included. So I spoke with Microsoft
corporate vice president Jared Spataro at the software giant’s Ignite
2018 conference. And he neatly cleared up the confusion.
Office 2019 is the latest version of Microsoft’s standalone Office
productivity suite. It’s what the firm now calls the “perpetual” version
of Office, or what old-timers like myself might still call
“on-premises.” And that’s for good reason: As Spataro told me, Office
2019 doesn’t offer any of the cloud-connected features that Office 365
subscribers would see using the exact same apps. Thus, it is, in fact, a
subset of Microsoft Office compared to the versions of the suite—or, the
applications—that Office 365 subscribers see.
This is an important distinction: For the first time ever, a major new
release of Microsoft Office provides less functionality than what
current users—in this case, Office 365 subscribers—already have access to.
This isn’t the way Microsoft markets the product, of course. And it’s
fair to say that Office 2019—e.g. the perpetual version of Microsoft
Office—provides more functionality than its predecessor, Office 2016.
For Office 365, Microsoft quietly dropped the year-based version numbers
from the Office desktop applications. You can see this when you start up
Word or one of the other applications: The about box that pops up while
it loads will read “Office 365” rather than the version number (like
“2016” or “2019”).
And this isn’t marketing. At its core, the version of, say, Word that
you launch as a perpetual customer (Word 2016 or 2019) is the same as
the version you launch as an Office 365 subscriber. But the Office 365
version of the app includes far more features. And if you’re paying
attention to this part of the Microsoft ecosystem, as I do, you know
that it includes/far/more features: Microsoft adds tons of new
capabilities to its Office 365 apps—across PC and Mac desktops, mobile,
web, and online services—every single month. It makes the Windows 10
update schedule look slow by comparison.
“We’ve evolved Office 365 to address how customers work today,” Mr.
Spataro told me. “They want to use the bigger screens on PCs or Macs for
creation, but they also want to work offline, and on mobile devices. So
we’re adapting Office to take advantage of each device type and scenario.”
I’ve long described Office 365 as a “no-brainer” for individuals (Office
365 Personal), families (Office 365 Home), and businesses of all sizes
and types (Office 365 commercial). In the beginning, this assessment was
tied to two major advantages: The 1 TB of OneDrive-based storage that
each customer receives and liberal access to the Office desktop
applications and mobile/web apps across multiple devices.
But over the past year or two, the rapid addition of new cloud-connected
features, many of which taking advantage of Microsoft’s unique AI
prowess, has tipped the scales. So Office 365 is absolutely still a
no-brainer. But now it’s for three primary reasons, not two. And thanks
to this rapid release schedule, which includes routine quality updates
in addition to the new features, Office 365 customers are also more
secure as well.
But back to Office 2019 and the confusion that this release has triggered.
Office 2019 provides all of the fixes and non-cloud updates that
Microsoft has added to Office 2016 over the past three years and
packages them in a more traditional form. It’s aimed at those
customers—commercial first, but a version for consumers is coming soon,
too—that will only use the product on a single PC and in “air gap”
scenarios in which the PC is rarely or even never online.
And it’s not about addressing a Luddite segment of the audience. There
are customers who need to use Office in situations in which they’d like
to be online but cannot for various reasons. Submarines, perhaps, or oil
platforms.
Most surprisingly, Office 2019 isn’t the end of the line, either.
Contrary to my suspicions, Microsoft isn’t being wishy-washy about
whether or not it will release an Office 2022 (or whatever).
“We/will/do another perpetual release of Office,” Spataro told me. “We
will absolutely do more.”
So the big change with Office 2019, really, is that Microsoft is
redefining what the version numbers mean. If you do see a version
number—2019, in this case—then you’re looking at a perpetual or
on-premises version of Office that does not benefit from the amazing
array of cloud- and AI-based features that Microsoft is adding for
Office 365 customers. You’re looking at less, not more.
And this means that Office 365 subscribers are already using versions of
Word and the other Office desktop applications that are superior in
every way to what’s available in Office 2019. You’re not going to get an
Office 2019 update on Office 365. You’re just going to continue getting
more functional and quality updates to Office. Every single month.
Welcome to the new Office.
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Microsoft’s release of Office 2019 this week
<https://www.thurrott.com/cloud/office-365/176084/office-2019-for-windows-and-mac-lands-today>has
triggered a bit of confusion in the user community. Your questions are
understandable, as this release marks an important change in the way
that Microsoft makes and sells its office productivity solutions.
And if this release is confusing to you, take heart: It’s confusing to
just about everyone, myself included. So I spoke with Microsoft
corporate vice president Jared Spataro at the software giant’s Ignite
2018 conference. And he neatly cleared up the confusion.
Office 2019 is the latest version of Microsoft’s standalone Office
productivity suite. It’s what the firm now calls the “perpetual” version
of Office, or what old-timers like myself might still call
“on-premises.” And that’s for good reason: As Spataro told me, Office
2019 doesn’t offer any of the cloud-connected features that Office 365
subscribers would see using the exact same apps. Thus, it is, in fact, a
subset of Microsoft Office compared to the versions of the suite—or, the
applications—that Office 365 subscribers see.
This is an important distinction: For the first time ever, a major new
release of Microsoft Office provides less functionality than what
current users—in this case, Office 365 subscribers—already have access to.
This isn’t the way Microsoft markets the product, of course. And it’s
fair to say that Office 2019—e.g. the perpetual version of Microsoft
Office—provides more functionality than its predecessor, Office 2016.
For Office 365, Microsoft quietly dropped the year-based version numbers
from the Office desktop applications. You can see this when you start up
Word or one of the other applications: The about box that pops up while
it loads will read “Office 365” rather than the version number (like
“2016” or “2019”).
And this isn’t marketing. At its core, the version of, say, Word that
you launch as a perpetual customer (Word 2016 or 2019) is the same as
the version you launch as an Office 365 subscriber. But the Office 365
version of the app includes far more features. And if you’re paying
attention to this part of the Microsoft ecosystem, as I do, you know
that it includes/far/more features: Microsoft adds tons of new
capabilities to its Office 365 apps—across PC and Mac desktops, mobile,
web, and online services—every single month. It makes the Windows 10
update schedule look slow by comparison.
“We’ve evolved Office 365 to address how customers work today,” Mr.
Spataro told me. “They want to use the bigger screens on PCs or Macs for
creation, but they also want to work offline, and on mobile devices. So
we’re adapting Office to take advantage of each device type and scenario.”
I’ve long described Office 365 as a “no-brainer” for individuals (Office
365 Personal), families (Office 365 Home), and businesses of all sizes
and types (Office 365 commercial). In the beginning, this assessment was
tied to two major advantages: The 1 TB of OneDrive-based storage that
each customer receives and liberal access to the Office desktop
applications and mobile/web apps across multiple devices.
But over the past year or two, the rapid addition of new cloud-connected
features, many of which taking advantage of Microsoft’s unique AI
prowess, has tipped the scales. So Office 365 is absolutely still a
no-brainer. But now it’s for three primary reasons, not two. And thanks
to this rapid release schedule, which includes routine quality updates
in addition to the new features, Office 365 customers are also more
secure as well.
But back to Office 2019 and the confusion that this release has triggered.
Office 2019 provides all of the fixes and non-cloud updates that
Microsoft has added to Office 2016 over the past three years and
packages them in a more traditional form. It’s aimed at those
customers—commercial first, but a version for consumers is coming soon,
too—that will only use the product on a single PC and in “air gap”
scenarios in which the PC is rarely or even never online.
And it’s not about addressing a Luddite segment of the audience. There
are customers who need to use Office in situations in which they’d like
to be online but cannot for various reasons. Submarines, perhaps, or oil
platforms.
Most surprisingly, Office 2019 isn’t the end of the line, either.
Contrary to my suspicions, Microsoft isn’t being wishy-washy about
whether or not it will release an Office 2022 (or whatever).
“We/will/do another perpetual release of Office,” Spataro told me. “We
will absolutely do more.”
So the big change with Office 2019, really, is that Microsoft is
redefining what the version numbers mean. If you do see a version
number—2019, in this case—then you’re looking at a perpetual or
on-premises version of Office that does not benefit from the amazing
array of cloud- and AI-based features that Microsoft is adding for
Office 365 customers. You’re looking at less, not more.
And this means that Office 365 subscribers are already using versions of
Word and the other Office desktop applications that are superior in
every way to what’s available in Office 2019. You’re not going to get an
Office 2019 update on Office 365. You’re just going to continue getting
more functional and quality updates to Office. Every single month.
Welcome to the new Office.