As you may well know, Microsoft supports its product suite for a fixed period of time before ceasing the delivery of maintenance and updates. The purchase of Office 2010 promised 10 years of support on a Fixed Lifecyle Policy. Clearly the new decade indicates this support is coming to an end and planning for an upgrade must begin. The biggest fallout from the cessation of support is that Microsoft will no longer provide security updates and they strongly recommend that you upgrade to the latest cloud or on-premise version to remain secure.
Office 2010 will retire on 13 October 2020 and, as announced, Microsoft will no longer provide technical support, security fixes or bug fixes. What does this mean for you? If you�??re a current user of Office 2010, you need to upgrade rather quickly!
So, what are your options? Microsoft recommend upgrading to one of their subscription based packages in the Office 365 family as they are updated regularly, often monthly, with new features. An alternative recommendation (and not our preference) is an upgrade to Office 2019 which will receive regular security and maintenance updates, but will not qualify for feature upgrades and has not been updated since the October 2018 release.
On the upside, depending on your subscription type, Office 365 includes always-up-to-date, full versions of:
- Word
- PowerPoint
- Excel
- Outlook
- OneNote
- Publisher
- Access
- Skype for Business
Microsoft promises this product will provide the most flexible, work anywhere environment; is a smarter way to work with built in AI; is built for teamwork to enable efficiencies across the office; and offers a more secure platform.
While Office 2019 will still be available with a perpetual licence, Office 365 subscribers pay on a subscription basis for always updated applications which can be installed on multiple PCs, Macs or mobile devices depending on your subscription.
For everything you need to know about life after Office 2010, check out the end of support roadmap.
And for more information on the options to upgrade from Office 2010, talk to your Sentrian Client Services Manager or enquire here.
