Microsoft announced last month that a new one-time version of Microsoft Office will be available this year, replacing Office 2021. Now, a few more details have been revealed about this package.
Microsoft has released a preview of Microsoft Office LTSC 2024, which is currently available only to business customers. Office LTSC is targeted at use cases such as “regulated devices that cannot accept feature updates for years at a time, manufacturing process control devices that are not connected to the internet, and medical testing equipment that runs embedded apps.” .
Although Office LTSC is not the same package as the Office home package, the commercial preview provides some hints about the Office 2024 package that will be available for home use later this year. It will replace Office 2021 (also known as “Office Home & Student” and “Office Home & Business”) as a one-time purchase version of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Microsoft previously said Office 2024 will be supported for five years, with likely no price changes, and should cost $150 for a license for a single computer.
Windows system requirements for Office LTSC 2024 include 4 GB of RAM and at least 4 GB of available disk space “per product installed.” It runs on any version of Windows 10 or Windows 11, and both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are available. However, ARM-based PCs require at least Windows 11. The Mac version requires 4GB RAM, at least 10GB of available disk space, and an Intel or Apple Silicon (M1, M2, etc.) chipset.
Microsoft’s documentation doesn’t say which versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other apps are included, but the experience should be pretty close to the versions currently available through Microsoft 365. However, all AI and cloud-based features are not available. . This means you won’t be able to edit Word documents at the same time as other people, and Copilot functionality won’t be available. In fact, that could be a selling point for some people. If you’re all about AI, Office 2024 may be for you.
Office LTSC 2024 on Windows includes Access, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Skype for Business, and Word, and the Mac version includes Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word. However, the home release of Office 2024 will almost certainly exclude Skype for Business, and it’s unclear whether Outlook will be available. Current Office 2021 packages only include the more expensive “Office Home & Business” edition of Outlook, and Microsoft recently made Outlook a free app on Mac. Newer Windows versions are also free to download, but classic Outlook is not and is still limited to Microsoft 365 and Office packages.
There is no official release date for Office 2024 yet, but it is expected to arrive sometime this year.
Source: Microsoft
