Although this may be simple miscommunication and we don’t yet know for sure, Microsoft Office is not disappearing.
Microsoft has changed its big product lines many times since Satya Nadella took over the company, and this makes sense. After all, Microsoft is one of Microsoft’s oldest and most popular brands. But it’s also fair to say that a lot of those brand changes have been aimed at promoting “Microsoft”–the overreaching brand–over individual product brands like Windows, Office and Surface.
Here, there’s more to this. Of course, it’s possible for Office to be downloaded as part of Windows 10, but people still associate it with the purchase of a new PC. It’s just too hard-coded into people’s minds.
Microsoft’s products are known for their high quality, and that includes not just Office but all of the products Microsoft offers. That’s what makes Microsoft 365 desirable.
In any event, Microsoft announced that they’ll be holding Ignite 2022 in October.
To clarify, Microsoft announced yesterday that the brand for Microsoft 365 is actually taking over the decades-old Office brand. The website also confirms this with its answer to the question “Is Office going away entirely?” with “No, as part of Microsoft 365 you will continue to get access to apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. We will also continue to offer one-time purchases of those apps to consumers and businesses via Office 2021 and Office LTSC plans.” Additionally, there are no changes to Microsoft 365 subscription plans.
In other words, in this reorganization Microsoft is keeping Office 365 as the uber brand for its sweeping productivity offerings and replacing that with Microsoft 365. This is their plan to keep the legacy products alive while they slowly phase out the Office brand. They started in April 2020, when they announced they would rename a few of the subscriptions. The big change happened in October 2022, when Microsoft announced that they were renaming all the Office 365 subscriptions to Microsoft 365. Certain products like Office Lens were renamed earlier because they are newer versions of an Office product rather than brand new ones so there wasn’t a need for branding on them.
What’s happening now is similar to what has happened in the past. In fact, it is curious why this didn’t happen earlier. From now on, Office.com, Office app for Windows 10/11, and Office mobile app will all be rebranded to Microsoft 365. Not only will they continue to offer very similar functionality to each other, each of them will also get a new icon and a new user experience as well as new features. More specifically, each will include a fresh interface that includes an easy-to-use Create page where users can quickly create templates using ready-made header layouts for you and your customers. There will also be a new Apps module that highlights familiar and new apps in addition to highlighting tools from your Microsoft 365 account such as cloud services such as OneDrive or Power BI
Microsoft’s FAQ says that these changes will roll out over the next few months. Office.com will be revved first, in November. And then the Office app for Windows 10/11 and Office mobile apps will be updated in January 2023.
We’ve seen these kinds of changes to software before, and it always ends up worse than anticipated. Tech buffs like myself are a sensitive bunch, and we usually react badly when products that we use regularly are killed or rendered less useful by their makers. But this is no death knell for Microsoft Office, a software line born when 5.25-inch floppy disks were still the norm and will likely outlive us all. Changes in strategy happen all the time, but how we access its features has evolved. However, Microsoft Office is as close to everlasting as any tech company can provide for consumers in this day and age of constant changes.
