Microsoft just announced a new perpetual or one-time purchase version of Office that will be released later this year.
Office 2021 will be available in both 32- and 64-bit editions for Windows and Mac in two: a consumer version, and an LTSC (Long-Term Servicing Channel) version for the commercial customers, and both versions will be supported for 5 years.
This LTSC perpetual version is designed for companies and organizations that can not use the 365 cloud version of Office where Microsoft invests, either because they can not connect to the internet, they cannot accept new update changes on a monthly basis, or for systems that must stay locked in time and require a long-term servicing channel, and Microsoft confirms that this not the last perpetual release of office, and that there will another in the future.
Microsoft has not detailed which new features Office 2021 will obtain, but said that the new Office LTSC features will include accessibility improvements, capabilities like Dynamic Arrays and XLOOKUP in Excel, dark mode support across multiple apps, and performance improvements across Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. Thus, the consumer version is expected to get the same features, and it's clear that Office 2021 will not include any major feature as Microsoft kept them exclusively for the Microsoft 365 subscribers.
A commercial preview of the Microsoft Office 2021 LTSC will be available next April while, while the final release is expected to release in the second half of this year alongside the next Windows 10 LTSC as Microsoft is trying to align in support its LTSC products, and this new Office release will ship with Microsoft Teams and OneNote apps while the Skype for Business will not be included with this suite, but remain available to download in the Microsoft Download Center.
The price of Office Professional Plus, Office Standard, and the individual apps for commercial customers will be increased by up to 10 percent at the time of general availability, while the Office 2021 for personal and small business edition will see no price increase.
