Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company that develops, manufactures, license supports, and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. In October 2020, Microsoft announced 115 million daily active users, and it is no secret that their company is extremely popular, especially around this time as we all continue to self isolate and work from home.
In recent news, Microsoft will be updating Office 2021 this year. The software giant will be introducing an updated Office 2021, aimed at personal users and Office LTSC (Long Term Servicing Channel) which is aimed at commercial use.
Office 2021 will be an update to Office 2019 and will be available at a one-time cost without requiring a Microsoft 365 subscription. Microsoft doesn’t have any plans to increase the cost, which means you can expect the pricing to be similar to Office 2019.
As for Office LTSC, a commercial preview will be available this April. While the company hasn’t confirmed any relevant features coming to Office 2021, we know that Office LTSC will be getting support for at least 5 years. The new LTSC version is expected to bring accessibility improvements, a new dark mode, Dynamic Arrays, and XLOOKUP in Excel, as well as other smaller changes across all the popular apps, including Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. These features are also expected to be adopted by Office 2021. Microsoft has promised to share more details on the new features closer to the launch date, which would be in the second half of 2021, reports XDA Developer.
These announcements are an indication that Microsoft is no longer just concentrating on Office 365. This move makes sense, as a lot of companies and businesses don’t have the resources to move to the cloud completely.
Jared Spataro, head of Microsoft 365, said in an interview with The Verge, “It’s just a matter of trying to meet customers where they are. We certainly have a lot of customers that have moved to the cloud over the last 10 months, that’s happened en masse really. At the same time, we definitely have customers who have specific scenarios where they don’t feel like they can move to the cloud.”
