3aIT Blog

Someone with a Microsoft mug using a Surface PCAlthough Microsoft would prefer you forget that a permanently licenced version of Office exists in favour of an ongoing 365 subscription, the 2024 edition of the somewhat stripped-down suite is sneaking out now.

The non-subscription version of the app is largely targetted at businesses with machines that cannot connect to the internet for some reason. Microsoft 365 requires a machine to connect to the internet at least once every few months to remain active. It isn't made available to private users, only businesses via volume licencing agreements. A consumer version may be made available at a later date.

In more recent years, Microsoft have greatly reduced the support window for these "fixed" version to just five years, presumably to reduce the temptation for businesses to pick this version in favour of 365.

The package contains Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, OneNote and Microsoft Access. It doesn't include Teams, which is now available separately. It also no longer includes Publisher, as Microsoft is retiring this app in a couple of years, so it will no longer be available via a 365 subscription past this point either.

As you would expect, the versions of the apps here don't include any features that require a connection to the internet, nor will they receive any ongoing feature updates like the 365 versions do. Also, the licence is specific to a single device rather than the 5 + web app access that 365 offers..

Microsoft have currently committed to one more single payment version of Office like this towards the end of the decade. It seems unlikely it will be the last, given there will always be machines that can't connect to the internet for various reason.