Hopefully I’m not too late with my advice. Hopefully nobody has yet bought Microsoft Office 2019. So why am I recommending that you don’t buy it?
Before I explain, if you already understand Microsoft’s Office 365 subscription model, then just read the next 3 paragraphs. If you don’t know the difference between Office 365 and Office 2019, you’ll probably find this entire blog post useful…
Summary
Excel 2019 is a point-in-time snapshot of the features and functionality of Excel. That point-in-time snapshot was taken in March 2018.
Any functionality that Microsoft has added to Excel (and the other applications in Office) since March 2018 will not be available to Office 2019 users. It will only be available to those with an Office 365 subscription.
In other words, when Microsoft released Office 2019 in September 2018, it was already 6 months out of date. Today it is almost A YEAR out of date.
Details
Traditionally Microsoft have released a new version of Office every 3 years, the most recent versions being 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2019. These versions were either released in those years or late the previous year.
Individuals and organisations can choose to buy the new version or remain on the old version. If you choose to buy the new version you will, of course have to pay (MS Office is not freeware) although if you have a licence for an older version, you are entitled to a cheaper “upgrade licence”.
Although Microsoft still offer that purchasing model, things changed in 2011 with the introduction of Office 365.
Office 365 is a subscription service from Microsoft. When it comes to the cost and what you get for your money, it get depends on which Office 365 package you buy. There are packages for home users, students and businesses. You can check out the latest prices here
Depending where you buy it from, a single copy of Office 2019 will cost you around $250. However, this is a one-off payment. You won’t have to pay again until you decide to upgrade to the next version in say, 2022. That works out at approximately $83 a year and if you choose not to upgrade until Excel 2025 comes out you can cut that cost in half.
For your $250 you get 1 licence which means that you can only install Microsoft Office on a single computer. You do not get access to OneDrive (Microsoft’s Cloud-based storage service) nor to Office Online (the browser-based versions of Office).
Compare that to Office 365 Home or Office 365 Business which costs about $100 a year. That figure that won’t change unless Microsoft change the price. You can’t halve the cost by “not upgrading” because, just like any other subscription (e.g. Netflix), once you stop paying you lose any entitlement to use it.
Although at face value it’s a higher cost per year, you do get more for your money: 6 licences for the latest desktop version of Microsoft Office (PC and Mac), 1TB of file storage on OneDrive, access to Office Online and more.
For me, the biggest benefit of an Office 365 subscription is the regular updates. That is the carrot that Microsoft dangles in front of you to persuade you to purchase a subscription rather than a one-off.
Each month Microsoft release a new “version” of the Office apps. The versions have numbers in the format of YYMM (e.g 1901 for January 2019). Each time a new version becomes available, you are prompted to download and install it.
Sometimes the new version contains bug fixes, but often it contains really useful and valuable new features. A few recent examples include:
- New functions such as TEXTJOIN and CONCAT
- New data types (stocks and geography)
- New types of charts
- The ability to deselect cells using CTRL
- An updated look and feel to The Ribbon
So to wrap up, when asked whether an Office 365 subscription is worth it, my answer is usually “Yes” although of course your circumstances may dictate otherwise.
The one problem I have with the new MS office is the icons are outline and not solid. At least for me, they are hard to see. I’d rather work with an old version and miss out on the new bells and whistles
Hi Mike, thank you for making aware of the differences between Office 365 and Office 2019. I agree with you, would also go for Office 365. Biggest reason for me are the regular updates.
Hi Jan and hi Mike (long time !)
Jan i would suggest changing your office theme. i use dark grey which works great for me.
And good article, i have been saying this for ages.
Hmm, I support customers using Excel 2010 – 2019, and have not seen any features added in the last ten years I need to have. In fact I will single out OneDrive as a great unwanted threat to my privacy, and wish I could obliterate it from Windows. I recommend running as a Local User to limit how much gets unintentionally shared with microsoft. In fact, all this tracking and data stealing, has led me to move to linux and libreoffice for 99% of my needs.
That said, if you are a business with lots of MS Office users, Subscription does make compliance, upgrades, and compatibility much easier.
Office 365 requires an absolutely insane number of firewall allowances, some of which can’t be allowed in an environment that processes protected data. Office 365 is just not an option in healthcare, or on any network that processes credit cards.
I am working on data entry forms and recently realized that they took the function out of 2019 excel. I want to work with 2010 excel… the functions and macro/advanced functions are more intuitive than the latest version. What a drag!!
I only use Excel, have owned a version since 2011. Ran brilliantly, no need for updates in the work I do but the 64 bit world has caught up with me. Consequence : $200 PER YEAR !!!!
I don’t want Powerpoint, I use Mail instead of Outlook, I can find a free word-processor but I have to buy all these plus Access (which I will never used), just to access Excel.
The result of a monopoly has never been clearer – no wonder we are looking for new laws to limit or break-up mega-corporations ! See you later, I’m off to Google-sheets.
Your current cost estimates for Office 365 ($100/Year) Versus One time purchase ($83/Year) of Office 2019 paints a very grim and discouraging picture. In other words, it doesn’t justify preference for Office 365. Instead it tends to justify preference for one-time purchase of Office 2019. Note the following comments:
• It means every 3 years I am paying $300 for Office 365 versus $250 for Office 2019. This implies I am paying $50 for new features and upgrades. Those new features and upgrades may not be necessary in a period of 3 years by over 90% of users who buy in a corporate organization. And if you get out of the corporate world my sense is that the number of users who may not find the new features and upgrades necessary will even be more. Perhaps the biggest plus on Office 365 is the fact that it is cloud-based. So is the $50 worth for the cloud in 3 years? This may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. This may be good for the corporate world who also have to look at other ways of ensuring security and related concerns of entrusting someone else with corporate data. But for the ordinary user is the $50 worth for 1TB storage on OneDrive in 3 years? No, I don’t think so.
• The case you have made would make a lot of sense if instead of 3 years one goes for 6 years before you do another one-time purchase of the latest version. You have rightly stated.
• However, MS could accelerate many people going to Office 365 if they cut their cost to $50/Year instead of $100/Year. The effect of this decision would also de-escalate the competition in preference for MS. In other words, what you lose through price reduction you gain more through volume.
• Is Office 365 subscription worth it? No, not at the rate you have provided.
The frequent updates and fixes are great but those of us approaching retirement would love to just freeze the functions they have now and work on without the $$ drain on their income. But they can’t with the subscription because you can’t continue using the version snapshot you have. I can see a court case some day that would say a vendor would be required to give you a version to use, on canceling the subscription, that enables the customer to be able to (e.g.) use the (gazillion) documents he has created over the years with his own data. Here, there may be some relief in using public software (OpenDoc, moving sheets to Google sheets, etc.) but that doesn’t work for something like Photoshop files (also now subscription).
Most of the new features you get with 365 are new bugs.