Microsoft’s February blog post declined to say which features would be included or excluded from Office 2021’s consumer version. Office 2021 will be supported for five years, Microsoft said. They are designed for customers who feel that the ongoing updates of a Microsoft 365 subscription don’t add value to their purchase, or who can’t or won’t pay for an ongoing subscription. Since Microsoft began releasing its standalone or, as it calls them, “one-time purchases” or “perpetual” versions of its Office software, they’ve shipped with a limited set of features and support. Remove non-product link (That version doesn’t include Microsoft Outlook, just Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.) There will be Office 2021 versions for both the Mac and Windows, Microsoft said. If true, that would price the cheapest version of Office 2021 at $150, the price Microsoft charges for Microsoft Office Home and Student 2019. Microsoft also did not offer any other pricing guidance beyond what it had said in February, which was that it did not plan to change the prices for this new release. On Thursday, Microsoft added the ship date of October 5.
Microsoft will release Office 2021 for personal and small business users “later this year,” Microsoft said in a blog post in February. It will include some, but not all of the features of Microsoft’s perpetually-updating cloud productivity service Microsoft said Thursday that it plans to launch Office 2021, a standalone version of Office 365, on Oct.