Microsoft Announces Office LTSC 2024 Preview -- Redmondmag.com

Microsoft Announces Office LTSC 2024 Preview

By Chris Paoli
03/18/2024

Microsoft on Friday announced that Office LTSC 2024 will be getting a preview in April.

This will be the first look at Microsoft's upcoming on-premises Office suite, and will arrive with enhanced search options in Outlook, new Excel features like Arrays and Dynamic charts and improved security and accessibility options.

The Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) version of Office is separate from the Microsoft 365 app version of the productivity suite. In line with past versions, Office LTSC 2024 will maintain its status as a "perpetual" license, tied to individual devices and backed for five years according to the Fixed Lifecycle Policy.

This version of Office does come with some drawbacks, compared to the traditional on-premises and Microsoft 365 versions. While Microsoft does say that Office LTSC 2024 is the most robust version it has made, it still is lacking in many areas, "like real-time collaboration; AI-driven automation in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; or cloud-backed security and compliance capabilities that give added confidence in a hybrid world," according to Microsoft.

Office LTSC is marketed toward organizational use and aimed at those devices that cannot be regularly updated.

While the price has not been announced, Microsoft said that LTSC 2024's cost will be increasing. "Office LTSC is a specialty product that Microsoft has committed to maintaining for use in exceptional circumstances, and the 2024 release provides substantial new feature value for those scenarios," wrote Microsoft. "To support continued innovation in this niche space, Microsoft will increase the price of Office LTSC Professional Plus, Office LTSC Standard, Office LTSC Embedded, and the individual apps by up to 10% at the time of general availability."

Microsoft confirmed that Office LTSC 2024 will also be coming to Mac, and will be available for both Windows 11 and Windows 10/10 LTSC systems. The company also said that more information on the on-premises versions of Visio and Project should be coming shortly.

About the Author

Chris Paoli (@ChrisPaoli5) is the associate editor for Converge360.

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