Should Your Company Move to Office 2019? Here’s What you Need to Know

should your company move to office 2019 here what you need to know
Should Your Company Move to Office 2019

Microsoft recently launched their cloud-based suite of office products, aptly named Office 2019, a successor to their Office 2016 suite. The successor, offered for both Mac and Windows users, contains new versions of all of Microsoft’s popular office software applications. Namely, Microsoft Word, their Excel spreadsheet software, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, Visio and Project. As always, it’s important for organizations to research new applications in order to determine the impact upon their organizations, as well as determine their upgrade readiness if they decide to move ahead with the new suite.

Getting Ready for the Cloud

Microsoft’s Office 2019 is cloud-based software. For those organizations who have already made the transition and are ready for cloud-based products, the transition to Office 2019 should be fairly seamless. But what about organizations who for one reason or another, are lagging behind transitioning to the cloud? According to Microsoft’s own support page, although they certainly encourage everyone to make their way to the cloud, they understand that organizations are in varying stages of transition. Therefore, Microsoft remains committed to providing additional releases post Office 2019 to their on-premise users.

Is Upgrading Required? 

Up until fairly recently, Office 2016 users thought they would be required to upgrade either to Office 2019 or Office 365 ProPlus if they wanted to connect to Office 365. Microsoft has reversed this position and is now stating that Office 2016 users will be able to connect to their Office 365 services through at least October 2023. This is good news for Office 365 users since it gives them a little more breathing room before upgrading.

Why Office 2019?

Some organizations may decide they want to move to Office 2019 in order to take advantage of the some of the new features within the suite. The new version of Word will offer features such as text-to-speech and learning capabilities and Excel will offer new functions, 2D maps, and enhancements to both PowerQuery and PowerPivot. The new PowerPoint will have 3D image management, enhanced zoom and will incorporate roaming pencil case capabilities.

If you would like to know more about the new features found in Office 2019, or if you have questions about upgrading, please contact us.