microsoft office 365 subscription customer support

#Microsoft office 365 subscription customer support upgrade#
#Microsoft office 365 subscription customer support windows 10#
#Microsoft office 365 subscription customer support software#

#Microsoft office 365 subscription customer support software#

Reducing support for Office LTSC and 2021 to five years makes the software less attractive in any comparison with Office 365/Microsoft 365.

#Microsoft office 365 subscription customer support windows 10#

For example, it steers corporate customers to the Enterprise and Education SKUs of Windows 10 by giving those versions, and only them, 30 months of support - a year's more than the 18 months others, such as consumers and small businesses, get. In fact, support is one of Microsoft's most powerful weapons for directing customer behavior, second only to price.Įxamples of Microsoft's spear of support are legion. Microsoft wields its support policy like a weapon - a Greek hoplite's spear, say - to poke and prod customers towards ends the company desires (which customers may, or may not, also desire). While the split naming offers interesting clues about Office's future, the real difference maker is the cutback to support. (Microsoft's Office numeric naming has used the current year up until a July release date release dates later than that carried the next year's designation.) The only SKUs previously provided with five years of support were those for the Mac (which always got less than the Windows versions).Īlthough Spataro did not disclose a release date for either Office LTSC or Office 2021 - the former will launch in 'the second half of the year,' he said, while the latter will debut 'later this year' - the 2021 label hints that at least the consumer/SMB edition will appear no later than summer. (The most recent version with a decade of support? Office 2016.) That doesn't even match the seven years given to Office 2019 (which leaves support in October 2025). Support: The new standard support span for Office - both 2021 and LTSC - will be five years, not the 10 the suite once received. But the SKU (stock-keeping unit) designed for enterprises and other large organizations will be pegged Office LTSC, the four-letter suffix referring to Long-term Support Channel, a term borrowed from Windows.

The next Office for consumers and small businesses will be labeled Office 2021, according to Jared Spataro, the executive who leads the Microsoft 365 group.

Two versions: Rather than a single nameplate for all perpetual editions of Office, as in the past, there will henceforth be two. The upcoming changes to Office are among the most sweeping since Microsoft overhauled the suite's development and release calendar with Windows 10's launch. Microsoft reiterated, seemingly for the nth time, that it is expending virtually all of its Office-related resources on the subscription-based Office 365 and Microsoft 365, and implied that anything but a subscription would be second rate and substandard. The company's multiple shots at the traditional form of licensing - dubbed 'perpetual' because the license provides rights to run the software as long as one wants - are more evidence, if it's needed, that Microsoft is eager to push, pull, and prod commercial customers into service-esque subscriptions.

#Microsoft office 365 subscription customer support upgrade#

Microsoft plans to upgrade the 'perpetual' Office for enterprises in the second half of the year, when it will also slash support to five years and raise prices by 10%.