Microsoft Office 2019: Understandably a Quiet Launch

Did you miss the launch In September 2018 of Microsoft’s newest version of Microsoft Office? If you did then it’s not really a surprise as it was launched very quietly, with little attention being drawn to it.  Strange you might think, but when you look at the what’s being offered and the pricing then it perhaps explain the quiet launch.

Since the launch of Office 365 in 2011, the subscription version of the online suite, there are over 120 million users worldwide. Unlike the perpetual licence you purchase for the downloadable versions of Office, you pay an on-going subscription to 365 and automatically get all the updates and new feature releases.

Microsoft would like everyone to move to Office 365 as it provides them with regular yearly income, with a user or business taking advantage of the lower subscription rate when entering a year agreement. Hence they are developing this version with the most powerful and extensive features and have released Office 2019 with less features than 365, and at a hefty price of £419.99.

However, many users and organisations prefer purchasing a perpetual licence, which is a one off payment, and find the features of the various downloadable older versions more than adequate to meet their needs. With a single user perpetual licence for Office 2016 download available for as little as just over £20.00 and an Office 365 subscription at £94.80 per user for a year’s access, 365 really needs to offer an organisation additional features that are going to bring increased productivity and efficiencies to warrant the price.

Whether existing users of Office 2010, 2013 or 2016 decide to upgrade to Office 2019 is yet to be seen, but at a price on the Microsoft store of £419.99 it seems extremely unlikely. ICT-R, The Research Platform for the EUC, (End-User Computing) space ran an Office 2019 performance test found that ‘upgrading or migrating to Office 2019 shows a measurable performance decrease’ compared to the 2013 and 2016 versions.

 

 

 

sources:

https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/microsoft-statistics/