You would have heard that Windows 7 goes out of support next month and have already (or almost) completed your migration to Windows 10 but did you know that Office 2010 is also going out of support next year?

In a survey by IT management software company Spiceworks in 2017, it found that Office 2010 was the most popular Office suite, followed by Office 2013. In our experience, unless they upgrade to Office 365, clients are less likely to upgrade to a major version of Office than they are Windows and will continue to use their older copy of Office as long as it works on their version of Windows or goes out of support.

Support for Office 2010 will end on 13 October 2020. From this date, Microsoft will no longer provide security updates or bug fixes, technical support and the online help system will be retired. Of most concern is the lack of security updates which will leave you at risk of attack with any vulnerabilities not being fixed by Microsoft.

As with other Microsoft products going out of support, your copy of Office will still work you just won’t have updates or support from Microsoft.

To stay current, customers have two options – upgrading to Office 2016 or subscribing to Microsoft 365.

The Office 2019 path

As with Office 2010, Office 2019 is a one-time purchase which allows you to use on a single device forever. It contains the features the Office apps had in Microsoft 365 in September 2018 “frozen in time”. It is suited to those who don’t want to pay for their software on a subscription basis and aren’t concerned with having the latest and greatest.

If you are considering purchasing Office 2019, you should be aware that it won’t get ten years of extended support, with support ending in October 2025 (the same as Office 2016).

The most useful changes in Office 2019 since Office 2010 are:

• Integration with OneDrive
• Support for editing PDF files in Word
• Support for saving as PDF files
• Improved Version History for documents
• Skype integration allowing you to chat, share screens and have conversations with co-workers right from within Office.
• OneNote’s interface becomes consistent with the rest of the office suite
• It works better on touchscreens (and has a toggle button at the top
• Excel can run in multiple windows (rather than having to open separate instances of the application)
• Smart Lookup allows you to select a word or sentence and get definitions, a location (for an address), photos and more.

The Microsoft 365 Path

Microsoft 365 is the new name for Office 365 which includes Office apps, cloud services and security services. It is a subscription-based product and new features become available on a regular basis. You can only use it as long as your subscription is current but it is licenced on a per user basis rather than per machine. The number of devices it can be installed on depends upon the plan, but most allow you to install it on 5 computers, 5 tablets and 5 smartphones.

The features you get depend on the plan you choose, but

Different subscription plans give different features, with some plans offering free Skype minutes (for home use), Skype for Business, Sharepoint online, 1TB of OneDrive storage, private social networking with Yammer and business grade email.

To discuss the best upgrade option for you, please contact us.