Published in Cloud

Microsoft discourages Office 2019

by on07 February 2019


Will you just look at our cloud?

Software king of the world Microsoft has launched a marketing campaign which appears designed to discourage users from buying Office 2019 and get them to move to Office 365 instead.

The adverts show twins Jeremy and Nathan calculating the differences in Excel, Cynni and Tanny present their findings in PowerPoint, while Scott and Sean type it out in Word. It is the usual out-of-touch American marketing ad but they appear to be showing a change of heart in the Vole Hill.

When Microsoft announced Office 2019 in September 2017, the company said the productivity suite was “for customers who aren’t yet ready for the cloud”.

And when Microsoft launched Office 2019 in September 2018, the company promised it wouldn’t be the last: “We’re committed to another on-premises release in the future.”

It would appear that Vole would rather you sign up to be among Office 365’s 33.3 million subscribers. Office 2019 is available for purchase but Microsoft really wants you to buy 365.

But this year, the company is hoping to win over enterprises to the cloud with AI features.

One ad points out that Office 365 includes fully-installed Office applications — the latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

“But those apps keep getting better over time, with new capabilities delivered every month. Most importantly, Office 365 is connected to the cloud, so you can access your content from any device, co-author with anyone in real-time (regardless of whether or not they’ve purchased a copy of Office) and use the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to create impactful content with less effort. On the flipside, Office 2019 also delivers full installs of the Office apps we know and love — but they’re “frozen in time.” They don’t ever get updated with new features, and they’re not cloud-connected. Also, Office 2019 doesn’t support real-time co-authoring across apps, and it doesn’t have the amazing AI-powered capabilities that come with Office 365.”

Microsoft could offer these AI features in Office 2019 but since the cloud makes them work and Office 365 is the cloud version of the productivity suite, you should really get that.

Office 365 still has some wonderful features. We particularly like the one where it refuses to save documents for no apparent reason - sometimes turning off the VPN works, sometimes it doesn’t - and then spacks out with multiple warning messages.

Last modified on 07 February 2019
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