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Microsoft No Longer Supports Office 2013
Microsoft on Wednesday offered a short posthumous public notice that its perpetual-license Office 2013 product has passed its end-of-support phase.
Office 2013 fell out of "extended support" on April 11, 2023. That date marks the end of a 10-year product support phase, and it means that Microsoft has stopped issuing patches for the product, although the product may continue to work. Microsoft added further pressure on Office 2013 users by indicating that connections to Microsoft 365 services won't be tested by Microsoft, so users could encounter "performance or reliability issues" that Microsoft isn't obligated to fix.
Microsoft years ago had heavily suggested that it might end Microsoft 365 connections to its perpetual-license Office products when they reached their end-of-support phases, but then the company backed away by quietly revising such language. However, the lack of assurance regarding Microsoft 365 connections likely amounts to the same risks for organizations that may continue to use Office 2013. The larger problem for organizations continuing to use this product, though, could be security issues, as Microsoft isn't obligated to patch those problems as well.
Microsoft wants organizations using its perpetual-license Office products to switch to its Microsoft 365 E3 services, where the Office software always gets updated, and organizations always pay for the products, either monthly or annually.
Microsoft's warnings regarding end-of-support for perpetual-license Office products will also be coming due for Office 2019 for Mac, which will lose support on Oct. 10, 2023 – a mere five-year stint as the product was released on Sept. 24, 2018.
Office 2016 and Office 2019 both will reach their end-of-support phases on Oct. 10, 2023. Office 2016 followed the traditional 10 years of support model, but Office 2019 got truncated to just seven years of support.
Microsoft gave broad and frequent notice about its support truncation plans with Office products. Likely, people will forget that Microsoft ever offered so-called perpetual license Office products, where organizations pay once and don't get new features. That old model probably was all that most organizations needed, but it's a licensing model that's soon to be forgotten.
Plenty of Microsoft products, including servers, have already met, or will be meeting, their end-of-support phases this year.
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.