Microsoft Reveals Office 2021 Pricing

[TheLostSwede]

Although Microsoft announced Office 2021 last month, the pricing was only announced today. As expected, Microsoft has several different versions of Office 2021 on offer and Microsoft 365 will also be updated to Office 2021 for subscribers to the service. Office 2021 will be available on the 5th of October, alongside Windows 11.

If you're looking to upgrade to Office 11, the bad news is that no upgrade pricing was announced and it's not clear if there even will be an upgrade offer. Office Home and Student, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Microsoft Teams, will set you back US$149.99, whereas Office Home and Business adds Outlook and "the right" to use the various Office packages for commercial usage, for US$249.99. Microsoft 365 remains at the same price levels. If you're planning to upgrade to Windows 11 and are using office 2013, do note that Microsoft is pulling the plug and you'll have to upgrade to a more recent version of Office.



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[qubit]

I thought Microsoft said that they wouldn't be releasing any more standalone Office products and were going Microsoft 365 only?

I remember Office 2019 was to be the last version. I wonder what changed.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I thought Microsoft said that they wouldn't be releasing any more standalone Office products and were going Microsoft 365 only?

I remember Office 2019 was to be the last version. I wonder what changed.

Too many complaints? Or too few Microsoft 365 customers?

 

[neatfeatguy]

I wouldn't care about using Outlook 365, but the fact that I see (at least once a week) is some random ass email from MS about....hell, I don't remember since I just flag it as junk every week and never read it.

Also, outlook 365 gives me random balloon pop-ups about Skype and the MS Team program or whatever the hell it's called.....it's down right irritating, like I'm browsing a website and you get stupid pop-up ads. I'm so glad I don't have to pay for this crappy software and that my work does.

I'm content with my Office 2016 version at home. I just make use of Excel and Word from it. I won't move to a pay version of MS Office ever.

 

[qubit]

Too many complaints? Or too few Microsoft 365 customers?

It's plausible, but I'd really like to know why for sure. As it is, they've got me on the yearly SaaS tithe treadmill with Mickeysoft 365 as I've got a cheap deal from work (and the product is very good) and I'm not about to swap it for this, so I'm not a stickler for the old way. But it does seem odd when they're so keen to get everyone renting rather than buying. I wonder if they're gonna have some sort of combined deal with Windows for a bit more money. I'm sure they'd love to.

EDIT: Also, Outlook 365 is actually still Outlook 2016 with a few tweaks. I wonder if we're gonna get a 2021 version now with a new look and new features? Will it have rounded corners, even on W10? That would tick me off. I want the right style for each OS.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

I thought Microsoft said that they wouldn't be releasing any more standalone Office products and were going Microsoft 365 only?

I remember Office 2019 was to be the last version. I wonder what changed.

Same thing that changed when they said windows 10 was the last.

IMO, a cash grab with little features/improvements.

 

[TheLostSwede]

It's plausible, but I'd really like to know why for sure. As it is, they've got me on the yearly SaaS tithe treadmill with Mickeysoft 365 as I've got a cheap deal from work (and the product is very good) and I'm not about to swap it for this, so I'm not a stickler for the old way. But it does seem odd when they're so keen to get everyone renting rather than buying. I wonder if they're gonna have some sort of combined deal with Windows for a bit more money. I'm sure they'd love to.

I swapped over to Google docs, as I'm using them for my company email anyhow. It works well enough and since I have to pay them anyhow...
I guess you'll get Office 2021 automagically on the 5th.

 

[neatfeatguy]

And how can I forget that the switch from what was 2016 on my computer at work to Office 365, for some reason Word 365 broke tables in the word docs. It added extra cells/tables or shifted things around so documents I use that looked good and printed up on one sheet, all of a sudden were garbled and stretched out along 2-4 pages. I did spend a few hours going through each word doc and having to fix it all.

You know what, Microsoft? You suck.

 

[TheLostSwede]

And how can I forget that the switch from what was 2016 on my computer at work to Office 365, for some reason Word 365 broke tables in the word docs. It added extra cells/tables or shifted things around so documents I use that looked good and printed up on one sheet, all of a sudden were garbled and stretched out along 2-4 pages. I did spend a few hours going through each word doc and having to fix it all.

You know what, Microsoft? You suck.

So what you're saying is that you're looking forward to the upgrade to the latest version on Tuesday?

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

I swapped over to Google docs, as I'm using them for my company email anyhow. It works well enough and since I have to pay them anyhow...
I guess you'll get Office 2021 automagically on the 5th.

ooo that reminds me, I wonder if we'll have to go thru that crap again about not being able to use notepad to edit a word file.

 

[SomeOne99h]

And how can I forget that the switch from what was 2016 on my computer at work to Office 365, for some reason Word 365 broke tables in the word docs. It added extra cells/tables or shifted things around so documents I use that looked good and printed up on one sheet, all of a sudden were garbled and stretched out along 2-4 pages. I did spend a few hours going through each word doc and having to fix it all.

You know what, Microsoft? You suck.

For once, as if you are talking about Libre Office's compatibility with opening MS Word files but now this!?
Hmm .. Could be a bug presented with and it got fixed with a patch? I mean, they do release patches that fixes existing bugs/technical issues...

 

[wolar]

Honestly the moment i used libreoffice i realized i don't need microsoft, easier to use with less bugs (amazing right?). Also TeX is right there as well for anyone looking to do professional work.

 

[SomeOne99h]

Honestly the moment i used libreoffice i realized i don't need microsoft, easier to use with less bugs (amazing right?). Also TeX is right there as well for anyone looking to do professional work.

I would easily use Libre Office, but the reality is harsh. I can get any file that is created by MS Office and then Libre Office won't open it probably. Not to mention that I wanted to learn and train with it since is the (default) app for office use.

There is version 7.3 alpha in the work that has/promises better compatibility but I don't know how much will it be.

LibreOffice master daily builds

 

[Shihab]

ooo that reminds me, I wonder if we'll have to go thru that crap again about not being able to use notepad to edit a word file.

Was that ever possible? Old .doc files were binary, iirc, and modern .docx are compressed (i.e. also binary).
But +rep if you ever manually edited the maze of decompressed xml files you get from these later ones... :|

There is version 7.3 alpha in the work that has/promises better compatibility but I don't know how much will it be.

Would be easier if collectively stopped buying the bs Microsoft sells with this OOXML charade and exclusively adopt ODF (then again, ending world hunger would probably be even easier).

Been using Libre for 9 years now, and I concur that it can be a pain for office use. But at some point, you just say f*ck it and start either sending out finalized PDFs, or just pass on the files as is and let the recipient fix whatever formatting gets screwed on their end.

Honestly the moment i used libreoffice i realized i don't need microsoft, easier to use with less bugs (amazing right?). Also TeX is right there as well for anyone looking to do professional work.

Not if you do spreadsheets. As much as I like Calc, it's got miles before it can reach Excel in both stability and performance.
And the Libre team really needs to figure out sandboxing instances of these applications. I've had it with one rogue spreadsheet forcing me to reopen half a dozen other sheets, documents and presentations. -_-

 

[zlobby]

Too many complaints? Or too few Microsoft 365 customers?

My money is on the second.

 

[wolar]

Was that ever possible? Old .doc files were binary, iirc, and modern .docx are compressed (i.e. also binary).
But +rep if you ever manually edited the maze of decompressed xml files you get from these later ones... :|


Would be easier if collectively stopped buying the bs Microsoft sells with this OOXML charade and exclusively adopt ODF (then again, ending world hunger would probably be even easier).

Been using Libre for 9 years now, and I concur that it can be a pain for office use. But at some point, you just say f*ck it and start either sending out finalized PDFs, or just pass on the files as is and let the recipient fix whatever formatting gets screwed on their end.


Not if you do spreadsheets. As much as I like Calc, it's got miles before it can reach Excel in both stability and performance.
And the Libre team really needs to figure out sandboxing instances of these applications. I've had it with one rogue spreadsheet forcing me to reopen half a dozen other sheets, documents and presentations. -_-

I didn't use Calc that much if i am being honest but using the word in both applications i much rather have libre.
Only time i did use calc was to process some data and i much liked the program asking what separator to use for the data and even have option for custom one (not sure where it is on excel tbh).

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I thought Microsoft said that they wouldn't be releasing any more standalone Office products and were going Microsoft 365 only?

I remember Office 2019 was to be the last version. I wonder what changed.

I think they probably realized there’s a subset of customers that won’t pay a monthly privledge to use it. This isn’t Netflix or Spotify where subscriptions get you access to tons of entertainment. No, it just gets you access to a set of work tools and some sketchy cloud storage. We use MS365 at work, and I share a handful of documents with other MS365 users in the same corporate bubble. Every single work day OneDrive gives me a ”can’t sync a local copy” error. And I ”fix” it by just opening and closing the document until the error goes away.

 

[Robin Seina]

Office 2003 still serves me well, why should I upgrade to that stinking ribbon?

 

[qubit]

I think they probably realized there’s a subset of customers that won’t pay a monthly privledge to use it. This isn’t Netflix or Spotify where subscriptions get you access to tons of entertainment. No, it just gets you access to a set of work tools and some sketchy cloud storage. We use MS365 at work, and I share a handful of documents with other MS365 users in the same corporate bubble. Every single work day OneDrive gives me a ”can’t sync a local copy” error. And I ”fix” it by just opening and closing the document until the error goes away.

I think you got it. With Netflix, there's always something new for your monthly sub, with Office it's just more of the same. Just bug fixes and minor improvements as time goes on.

Office 2003 still serves me well, why should I upgrade to that stinking ribbon?

I thought people were way past that now?

I wasn't too sure of it at the time, but I kept an open mind and on getting used to it, found it's actually fine. You have everything in front of you with convenient buttons, with a few master tabs at the top switching between button sets. Oh and you can set it to autohide too, if you really want that bit of screen real estate back.

 

[zlobby]

I think they probably realized there’s a subset of customers that won’t pay a monthly privledge to use it. This isn’t Netflix or Spotify where subscriptions get you access to tons of entertainment. No, it just gets you access to a set of work tools and some sketchy cloud storage. We use MS365 at work, and I share a handful of documents with other MS365 users in the same corporate bubble. Every single work day OneDrive gives me a ”can’t sync a local copy” error. And I ”fix” it by just opening and closing the document until the error goes away.

O365 and OneDrive are complete mess, even their corporate tiers.

 

[tabascosauz]

I've always disliked the Office 365 model and always bought standalone 2003/2007/2010/2013 but put up with them anyways because I've had ProPlus licence (the highest tier including Access and Publisher) from higher education for the last 6 years. On that 365 stint I've been through 2016 PC, 2016 Mac and 2019 PC. Now that it's finally coming to an end in just 2 days, I've been looking at Office licences and the Personal Family plan actually makes a lot of sense if you have other people in your life.

$110 a year for basically 6-device Home and Business. Allegedly starting from Year 2 it's down to $80/year for some reason, according to someone who's been on it for years?
$150 for Home and Student licence on 1 device.
$320 for Home and Business licence on 1 device. Absolutely fucking asinine.

I know exactly why it is so expensive now, because they want to push you to 365, but still.

I've flirted with Libre a few times because of installing Linux on my laptops. The very limited/nonexistent VBA support in Calc, dark themes in Kubuntu incompatibility with Libre apps, random stability issues in Calc, apparently very poor HiDPI support...........needless to say running daily Kubuntu is only now viable on my XPS 13 because I'm no longer studying and don't need Office on it. So as much as I would like to have an alternative to Office, there just hasn't been one yet.

That said I will die before I use OneDrive as my main cloud solution. Dropbox Pro hasn't been cheap either but the file version history has saved my ass multiple times, and I've never had reliability issues with Dropbox on mobile, Linux, Mac, or PC. OneDrive reliability is hilarious and so is the Android app - it's why I always put my OneNote notebooks in Dropbox and dealt with the hassle rather than set it up in O365 as they would prefer. Maybe I'll store some useless stuff with the free OneDrive that comes with O365 Family, if I don't first automatically uninstall Onedrive as on any new Windows installation of mine.

Also even the standalone versions aren't really "yours forever" either, MS still has control over you. MS pulled the installer for Office 2010 recently I think, found out the hard way when trying to reinstall. No security updates either, obviously. I'm not gambling an important computer on some alleged O2010 installer downloaded from a random obscure third party website.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

and minor improvements as time goes on.

I think that’s the real issue they went to the subscription. Office was good enough for 95% of users probably 10-15 years ago. Today, I click the “update office” prompt with hesitation, because I highly doubt there’s anything new that I will notice or appreciate. Sometimes it changes things for the sake of change, requiring me to relearn. Does it take long to relearn? No, but it disrupted my workflow, with typically no reward to me. MS just doesn’t want to sell a one-time copy of if software that they know will last many of its users a lifetime. I appreciate Excel and I guess outlook, but the rest of the suite is marginal at best. Word is quite possibly the most frustrating program I have ever used. Formatting is often a nightmare.

 

[windwhirl]

o. Today, I click the “update office” prompt with hesitation, because I highly doubt there’s anything new that I will notice or appreciate.

And you're probably right. The changes from 2016 to 2019 were minimal

 

[mechtech]

MS office lol who uses that anymore..................besides business that is?

I wouldn't buy that for home or personal use anymore, lot more other more economical options. It was great when it was $20 as part of the HUP, now, not so much.

 

[yotano211]

Its free on some websites.