


Unlike with the consumer version of Office, whose price remains unchanged, Microsoft said it will increase the price of its LTSC versions-Office Professional Plus, Office Standard, and the individual Office apps-by up to 10 percent at the time of general availability in the second half of 2021. It will instead ship with the Microsoft Teams app, “allowing customers to enable and trial this experience if they so choose,” Microsoft added. The next version of Office will not ship with the Skype for Business client app, which will be available as a download in the Microsoft Download Center. The LTSC version (and possibly Office 2021 as well) will also “not offer the cloud-based capabilities of Microsoft 365 Apps like real-time collaboration and AI-driven automation in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint,” Microsoft said. That version will include accessibility improvements, capabilities like Dynamic Arrays and XLOOKUP in Excel, dark mode support across multiple apps, and performance improvements across Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint, Microsoft said. Microsoft’s commercial version, known as the Microsoft Office Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC), may offer some clues, however. Microsoft’s February blog post declined to say which features would be included or excluded from Office 2021’s consumer version. Office 2021 will be supported for five years, Microsoft said. They are designed for customers who feel that the ongoing updates of a Microsoft 365 subscription don’t add value to their purchase, or who can’t or won’t pay for an ongoing subscription.

Since Microsoft began releasing its standalone or, as it calls them, “one-time purchases” or “perpetual” versions of its Office software, they’ve shipped with a limited set of features and support.
