Starting October 13, 2020, Office 365 ProPlus or Office perpetual in mainstream support will be required to connect to Office 365 services.

Office 365 ProPlus or Office perpetual in mainstream support required to connect to Office 365 services.

To ensure that customers are getting the most out of their Office 365 subscription, we are updating our system requirements. And the end user experience in the apps is limited to the features shipped at a point in time.

The IT benefits-particularly security-are cut short. When customers connect to Office 365 with a legacy version of Office, they’re not enjoying all that the service has to offer. Here is what Microsoft’s Ron Markezich had to say about the changes ahead. For many users, the standalone suite remains attractive, especially for organizations that need control over access to features in the suite. Office 365, on the other hand, has received numerous improvements and features such as improved collaboration, business intelligence enhancements in Excel, and Motion Path in PowerPoint. Office 2016 Professional Plus has pretty much stood still since its 2015 release, receiving only security updates. One of the key benefits of Office 365 versus Office 2016 is the ongoing delivery of new features and functionality. Microsoft Winding Down Support for Perpetual Versions of Office So, if you don’t cut over to a Microsoft Office subscription by then, it will no longer be supported to connect to Microsoft’s cloud services. For example, Office 2016 which was launched in September 2015 will have its mainstream support end in 2020.

The company is not ending the development of perpetual versions of the suite, but users will need to move to the latest versions in order to access all of Microsoft’s Office 365 cloud services.

Latest version of office 365