Office 2021 and Office LTSC: Everything you need to know

Office 2021 and Office LTSC are officialy released by Microsoft. Essentially, Office 2021 and Office LTSC are the same. Office LTSC stands for Office Long Term Servicing Channel. For most Microsoft applications, LTSC means that the product will be supported by Microsoft for longer with, for example, security updates. It's different with Office 2021 where the support is usually provided for a shorter duration. Office LTSC means is a one-time purchase which many businesses prefer than the subscription license Microsoft 365. Office LTSC is for intended for businesses and governments, while Office 2021 is best suited for consumers. In this blog you can read more about the advantages and disadvantages of Office LTSC and Office 2021.

Office LTSC and Office 2021 Release date and availability

Office LTSC was released September 16, 2021 for businesses and governments. Office 2021 will be released to the general public on October 5, 2021. The package will receive support for five years from the date of release. Office 2021 and LTSC are only compatible with Windows 10, Windows 11 and some upcoming operating systems.

What's new in Office 2021 and Office LTSC?

Microsoft has confirmed that several new features have been added in Office 2021. Many of these are cosmetic, but some other features have also been added to Office 2021:

Dynamic Arrays in Excel;
XLOOKUP function in Excel;
Dark mode support;
Line focus in Word's 'Immersive Reader' feature;
One can now record presentations with speech in PowerPoint;
Accessibility improvements;
Performance improvements;
Stock photos library;
Automatic save (separate Onedrive subscription required to use);
Search bar to find functions quickly.

Office 2021 and Office LTSC will therefore not include most cloud-based features such as Excel Data Types. Skype for Business will not be included with Office LTSC, but can be downloaded separately.

Office 2021 and Office LTSC naturally sound promising, but a second-hand Office 2019 license is much cheaper and therefore certainly worth considering.

Office LTSC and Office 2021 price: it should be cheaper

According to Microsoft, Office 2021 prices would remain the same as Office 2019, but Office 2019 prices have recently been increased by 10%. This makes new licenses unbelievably expensive. Therefore, consider Pre-owned Office 2019 licenses from Softtrader, this will save you up to 70% in costs.

Why Office LTSC or Office 2021 and not Office 365?

Many people prefer Office as a one-time purchase, others prefer Office 365 with a subscription. There is something to be said for both, but for many large organizations a uniform approach is more convenient. Office LTSC is the most suitable choice for this, because there are no cloud-based features and the package will not change from front to back. Sometimes Office 365 gets major updates that change an entire application, this is not wanted within organizations so as not to slow down productivity. This principle is called as 'Locked-in-time' version, with which companies prevent business processes from being disrupted by updates. Office 365 is always up-to-date because it is cloud-based, which can be an advantage for many people. It is painfully clear that Microsoft would prefer not to sell Office 2021 and LTSC, there is more profit for Microsoft on a subscription form of Microsoft Office 365. This is clearly visible in the significant price increases, the shortened support period and the limited Office features and updates as a one-time purchase. In addition, it is more difficult to switch to an alternative if you have purchased a cloud-based package, because everything is in the cloud.

Office LTSC and Office 2021 for Mac

Office 2021 and Office LTSC will be available for 64-bit Mac systems. Office 2021 and Office LTSC will run on Intel or M1 built Mac computers. It is expected that depending on the form of the various Office 2021 packages, Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Access for Mac will not be available.

Office LTSC 2021 vs Office 2019

Office 2021 will receive some major additions of functionalities, but will remain relatively the same as Office 2019. You can therefore get a similar feeling with both versions. The prices of Pre-owned Office 2019 start at €50,- euro here at Softtrader Europe B.V. Therefore, carefully consider whether an Office 2019 is more convenient for your organization.

Learn more about the differences between Office 2021 and Office 2019.

Cheap Office 2019

At Softtrader you can buy now both a Microsoft Office 2019 perpetual licence and a Microsoft Office 2021 perpetual licence. We have a wide range of different Microsoft Office versions available. Request your quote below this blog.

Do you have questions? Contact us!

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