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Office 2019 – What You Need to Know

Microsoft is expected to release its latest version of Office in the second half of 2018. The new Office 2019 is designed to include significant improvements over Office 2016 and other perpetual versions of Office. These improvements include powerful feature upgrades to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Office 2019 is the next perpetual release of Office.

What is perpetual licensing?

Perpetual licensing is a one-time purchase software installation that authorizes an individual to use a program indefinitely. Support and updates are typically provided for a set number of years until the software becomes outdated. Perpetual licensed software resides on a server or device at your home or business (on-premises) that you maintain. If your organization has a specific need for on-premises or per-device software licensing, Office 2019 is a valuable new release of Office with a subset of features from the cloud-based version known as Office 365.

What is Office 365?

Office 365 is a cloud-based version of Office that is available as a subscription. It delivers the most secure and up-to-date features of Office through a per user billing structure. With Office 365, the software is located and managed remotely (off-premises) on servers owned by Microsoft. Like many cloud services you use every day, Office 365 can be accessed from virtually anywhere using a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone. The Office applications can also be installed on your PC or Mac as regular desktop versions. The perpetual and cloud-based versions of Office deliver the same application experiences, but there are several advantages to Office 365:

  • Get Office up and running fast with easy user setup.
  • Always have the latest versions of your familiar Office applications.
  • Get updates delivered to users without interruption.
  • Users can install Office on up to five PCs or Macs concurrently and they will have access to mobile Office experiences across smartphones, tablets and other devices.
  • Organizations may be able to treat Office as an operational cost instead of a software asset.
  • If you have a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy, Office 365 lets you de-activate Office on user-owned devices when people leave the organization or if their device is compromised.

Office 365 provides access to a suite of services beyond what’s included with the perpetual version and receives feature enhancements on an ongoing basis. However, not all organizations are ready to move to the cloud, so Office 2019 will enable them to take advantage of meaningful feature upgrades over other perpetual versions of Office. The specific product launch date has yet to be announced, but a commercial preview is currently available for volume license customers. Windows 10 will be required for installation of the new Office 2019. For a detailed list of feature updates, visit the Office 2019 FAQs page.

Stay in the know about industry trends and technology with DTS’ Managed IT program. We offer vCIO services along with quarterly reviews to keep you up-to-date and ahead of the competition. DTS is your authorized Microsoft partner offering the full suite of Office products, including Office 365 in Bloomington, MN. Contact Definitive Technology Solutions today to learn more!