Microsoft announces Office 2019, coming next year

[Shawn Knight]

Microsoft at its Ignite conference in Orlando on Tuesday announced the next major release of Office, the suite of productivity-focused applications first announced by Bill Gates way back in 1988.

Office 2019 will arrive next year and include staples like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. The perpetual update will also come with server versions of Exchange, SharePoint and Skype for Business.

Jared Spataro, general manager for Office, said in a blog post that Office 2019 will add a host of new user and IT capabilities.

Examples are said to include new inking features such as pressure sensitivity, ink replay and tilt effects as well as new formulas and charts that’ll improve data analysis in Excel and visual animation features like Zoom and Morph to add polish to PowerPoint presentations. Server enhancements, meanwhile, will improve IT manageability, voice, usability and security, we're told.

Microsoft intends to ship previews of the new products by mid-2018.

The industry as a whole is investing gobs of resources into the cloud. Fortunately, companies like Microsoft realize that not everyone is ready or willing to move all of their operations off-site. For such businesses, tech products like Office 2019 are imperative.

Spataro said Microsoft looks forward to sharing more information on Office 2019 in the coming months.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/71144-microsoft-announces-office-2019-coming-next-year.html

 

[oldikes]

A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.

 

[cliffordcooley]

After a few more automated Windows upgrades, I may have little choice but to upgrade my Office 2010.

 

[turismozilla]

Nice, I like the pay to own way, like in the old days.

 

[Humza]

I read somewhere that Skype for Business was soon to be replaced by Microsoft Teams.

 

[Mister_K]

After a few more automated Windows upgrades, I may have little choice but to upgrade my Office 2010.

It's fairly cheap. Getting this with a custom domain email from places like Office365 or Cloudplatform etc, you get the Email +Aliases, 50GB storage, ALL Office Software and then some. A win/win really. Microsoft Exchange its pretty good to be fair, mostly.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Word and Excel are worth the price of admission..... although I'm not really sure there's much more functionality since Office 2010... or even 2007....

Unless you're rocking Lotus 123, Excel is really the only option

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

M$ Office, I haven't used it in years. The last time I used it, it think it was Office 2007, maybe even a earlier version.

 

[TheBigT42]

M$ Office, I haven't used it in years. The last time I used it, it think it was Office 2007, maybe even a earlier version.

Long Live Libre Office

 

[gusticles41]

I read somewhere that Skype for Business was soon to be replaced by Microsoft Teams.

Confirmed

https://blogs.office.com/en-us/2017/09/25/a-new-vision-for-intelligent-communications-in-office-365/

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Long Live Libre Office

I used to use it a lot and I'd still use it if I had a use for it but since retiring, I don't anymore. If I need a quick word processing program, I turn to Google Docs. Crude, but it does for me.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

How about some more color themes guys? If we have to use Office we don't want to be blinded by the 98% WHITE UI which is default in 2016. If we can't have more themes at least make a nice theme designer for us so the community can make themes.

 

[DelJo63]

IMO, there's only one feature that would make Office mandatory: Calendar integration for scheduling meetings. If you're NOT in some infrastructure with work groups, there are other choices, free and independent of MS that provide all the other features:

• Libre Office or Open Office gets you compatible Word, Excel, Powerpoint
• Thunderbird is a far better email client and you can forget the 2GB PST size problems.
  
• and it offers integration the Gmail Calendar to sync your desktop events to your mobile device(s).

These are also platform independent as well {Mac, Linux, Pc}

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

IMO, there's only one feature that would make Office mandatory: Calendar integration for scheduling meetings. If you're NOT in some infrastructure with work groups, there are other choices, free and independent of MS that provide all the other features:

• Libre Office or Open Office gets you compatible Word, Excel, Powerpoint
• Thunderbird is a far better email client and you can forget the 2GB PST size problems.
  
• and it offers integration the Gmail Calendar to sync your desktop events to your mobile device(s).

These are also platform independent as well {Mac, Linux, Pc}

Well M$ would argue their Office suite is platform independent... Office 365 online will work on any internet connected device, and it works quite well. That being said they only have an installable app for Windows, Android (sort of), iOS, and MacOS. And if they can make it for those non-Windows OS's there is no reason they can't make it for various Linux distros out there like Ubuntu. MacOS is pretty much a Linux distro as well, just closed source.

 

[DelJo63]

Well M$ would argue their Office suite is platform independent... Office 365 online will work on any internet connected device, and it works quite well.

I believe this implies that w/o internet access, your docs can not be modified and saved -- like working on a laptop while traveling by train or plane. This would not always be acceptable.

 

[DelJo63]

MacOS is pretty much a Linux distro as well, just closed source.

It was derived from FreeBSD, long before any Linux was available.

the original logo was

the current logo is