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Microsoft is set to release two new versions of Office in 2021, a consumer version and LTSC (Long-Term Servicing Channel) for commercial customers. Similar to the previous version of Office i.e. 2019, the 2021 version has been designed for those who don’t want to utilize the cloud services offered in Office 365.
Currently, the tech giant hasn’t released all details relating to the respective features and changes that will come with Office 2021 and LTSC. However, it is expected that both versions will feature dark mode support, accessibility improvements, dynamic arrays in Excel.
Apart from the additional features, so far Microsoft has not confirmed any major UI changes to the new Office. Non-cloud-dependent Office tools were something that had been highly requested from the general public for many months, hence the introduction of Office LTSC. It is a clear indication that most business professionals are still not ready to use cloud infrastructure in their respective proceedings.
According to Jared Sparato, Head of Microsoft 365:
“We certainly have a lot of customers that have moved to the cloud over the last 10 months, that’s happened en masse really. At the same time, we definitely have customers who have specific scenarios where they don’t feel like they can move to the cloud.”
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Office LTSC will have the five-year support instead of the usual seven however support timing will align more closely with how Windows is supported. Similarly, release schedules for both Office and Windows will have nearly the same time.
These versions of Office are set to release this April with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
