The Future of Office Perpetual Licensing
For years now, companies have been having a debate as to what is better for them regarding their Microsoft Office licensing. On one hand, there's 365 and on the other there's perpetual. Perpetual comes with a pretty hefty initial cost, but is a one-time purchase that lasts until the program is unsupported and cannot be used. This type of license is also assigned to one (and only one) computer.
365 is a subscription-based model that allows for changing subscription numbers in response to staff fluctuations, comes at a lower initial cost, and is licensed by user (meaning one user having a license can allow them to use Office on a desktop, a laptop, a phone, a tablet, etc. with only one license).
What's Changing?
It is important to remember that Microsoft wants users to all move to the 365 model, and some the changes being made to perpetual licensing will reflect this desire. Beginning sometime in the second half of 2022, Office 2019 will no longer be sold and Office 2022 will be the only perpetual licensing available. While previous revisions would have seven years of support, the new product will only be supported for five years. This will mean the only supported perpetual licensing options at that time will be Office 2016, Office 2019, and Office 2022. Microsoft will be looking to end use of 2016 and 2019 with their end dates, however.
The ultimate goal with this change is that Microsoft will force those who choose to continue using perpetual licensing to purchase new licenses more frequently. Over the past two releases, support will have dropped form 10 years to just 5, meaning they will require those large one-time payments twice as often, perhaps even more often than a computer will be replaced. This will result in Microsoft making more money or users switching to 365, either of which is alright from their perspective.
Outside of the change in support life cycles, there is currently not much else changing. There will be added support for dark mode and the ability to narrate a slide show in PowerPoint, but the rest is likely the same. At this time, no price increase has been announced, but it would not be unreasonable to expect one given that it would help push users to 365 in many cases.
