![]() No word yet if a purchased copy of Office 2019 for Mac will be able to run on macOS versions prior to 10.12.įor individuals, Office 365 subscriptions starts from $7/month or $70/year. Microsoft says that users on macOS 10.11 or earlier will still be supported, but won’t gain the new updates. ![]() New features coming to the latest Office revision include a new focus mode, morph transitions, new admin tools, and more. Microsoft has yet to announce when it will release Office 2019 for Mac other than in the “second half of 2018.” The updates are scheduled to release next month for Office 365 subscribers. Now the company has announced that all the updates that come with the new software will be heading to Office 365 subscribers as long as they are running macOS Sierra or later.ĭetailed in a blog post, Microsoft said that to receive the latest features that come along with Office 365/Office 2019 for Mac next month, users will need to be running at least macOS Sierra 10.12.Īs of the Office 365 for Mac September 2018 update, macOS 10.12 or later is required to update to the new version of the Office client apps for Mac and receive new feature updates. That will likely leave one-time Mac SKUs, like Home & Student and Home & Business, sans support.Microsoft shared an Office 2019 for Mac preview last month. Instead, Microsoft will just rewrite the rules, as it's recently done with other products, notably older versions of Internet Explorer. If so, it's unreasonable to expect that Microsoft will provide endless support for Office 2016 for Mac, even though the line "2 years after the successor product is released" may hint at such. Thus Office 2016 could be the final non-Office 365 edition of the 25-year-old bundle. If it does decide to continue the practice, users should not expect an announcement for two years or more. Microsoft told customers months ago that it would do so for Office 2016, but not surprisingly, has made no follow-up pledge for the version after that. Yet with the emphasis on Office 365 as the delivery vehicle for Office, there's no guarantee that Microsoft will continue to sell one-time, perpetual SKUs. Office 365 subscribers, of course, may not be affected by the support shortage, as long as they continue to maintain the subscription, because Microsoft will presumably refresh the Mac suite for those customers. The support shortfall is most glaring for that $230 SKU (stock-keeping unit).Īnd Microsoft's push on Office 365, which touts not only rights to run Office 2016 on Windows but also on Apple's OS X, makes the policy nonsensical: Office 365 has been widely adopted by corporations, which have increasingly moved to support Macs, whether company-issued or worker-owned. "This extension does not change the five-year support policy for other Office for Mac products, including future versions," a Microsoft product manager said at the time.Īlthough Microsoft does not make an enterprise-class Office suite for Mac, the more expensive Office Home & Business 2016 for the Mac is aimed at office workers, as it includes the Outlook email client, a staple in business. In the first instance, Microsoft made clear the support postponement was not a change in policy. In 2009, the company extended support for Office 2004 for Mac by 27 months to give users additional time to upgrade to Office 2011 it did the same this summer by adding 21 months to Office 2011's support, again to give customers the promised "2 years after the successor product is released." Consumer-grade software receives Mainstream support only.Īt times, as the FAQ indicated, Microsoft has been flexible about Office for Mac support. Meanwhile, Extended delivers security updates only. The former includes not only security patches, but also feature changes and non-security bug fixes. Microsoft breaks its usual decade of support into two five-year parts: Mainstream and Extended. "Extended Support is not offered for Consumer software and Multimedia products with the exception of Windows Desktop Operating system." "Microsoft will offer Mainstream Support for either a minimum of 5 years from the date of a product's general availability, or for 2 years after the successor product (N+1) is released, whichever is longer," the same FAQ reads. Meanwhile, consumer software gets shorter shrift. ![]() "Microsoft will offer a minimum of 10 years of support for Business, Developer and Desktop Operating System (consumer or business) Software Products," the company states on its support lifecycle FAQ. The difference means a shorter support span for Office on Mac. At the same time, it categorizes all editions of Office on OS X as consumer products. Microsoft has long considered all editions of Office for Windows as business products, no matter that some - like Home & Student - cannot be used for commercial purposes. This support-glass-half-empty trait goes back years. ![]()
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