Office 2019, still licensed, now available to business customers

The perpetual license version of Office Office applications, of the Office 2019 brand, was released today. It is available as a single purchase for commercial customers with a volume license. A consumer version will come in the coming weeks.

Office 2019 is supported on Windows 10 only. no support for Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 is available – and the three most recent versions of macOS (that is, the version of today's 10.14, 10.13 and 10.12).

The new desktop includes updated versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. On Windows, it also includes Publisher, Access, Project, and Visio. These applications are all in maintenance mode: they receive security patches but have not changed their functionality. There is no 2019 version of OneNote at all; the Windows 10 UWP version of the application is now the main release, although Office 2019 customers will still be able to install OneNote 2016 if they wish.

The four main apps have new features, but these features are not as new as they look; they are already available to Office 365 subscribers. For example, PowerPoint support for 3D models and Excel support for 2D maps is already available in Office ProPlus (the version of Microsoft Office. subscription updated permanently). Office 2019 represents a fixed snapshot of the Office 365 version; on the lifecycle supported in 2019, it will receive security and stability patches, but it will no longer accept new features.

This lifecycle supported is shorter than expected. Instead of the usual five years of support and five years of extended support (security), Microsoft has been in business for just two years, with extended support for two years.

Microsoft promises that Office 2019 will not be the latest version of Office unlicensed and perpetually licensed. However, the discreet and business-oriented version, as well as the fact that it catches Office ProPlus, clearly shows that Office 365 is the company's top priority.

This is nowhere clearer than the installer. Office 2019 now uses a local version of the Click-to-Run (C2R) installation program for ProPlus, instead of a traditional MSI package. For cloud clients using ProPlus, C2R offers convenient features, such as streaming application installations (you can start using the applications before they are fully downloaded) and transparent, automated updates (more service packs). via Windows Update). Office 2019 will take over some of these features. For example, it will be used to apply security patches and it will be possible to install a pre-patched version of the applications. The big difference is that it will be able to use on-premises sources to install files and updates, rather than launching into the cloud, in line with the cloudless perpetual license positioning.

Over the next few weeks, perpetual versions of Office servers (Exchange Server 2019, Skype for Business Server 2019, SharePoint Server 2019, and Project Server 2019) will also be released, completing the on-premise software update cycle.

Image list by Scott Robinson / Flickr