Mac Microsoft Office 2016 users will lose 365 cloud services in October

Posted:
in General Discussion
Users of all Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac apps will cease getting security updates in October, and will increasingly face performance and reliability issues as Microsoft drops support.

The main apps in Office 2016 for Mac
The main apps in Office 2016 for Mac


From October 13, 2020, Mac users of Office 2016 will no longer be officially supported on Microsoft's Office 365 or Microsoft 365 services. This means the business versions of OneDrive, SharePoint and Exchange Online will not be supported, although they may continue to function.

Microsoft's official announcement is contradictory, stating first that Office 2016 will remain in the list of supported versions. This is the Windows version, however, as the company later specifies that: "Office 2016 for Mac isn't supported."

That's because the company is officially ending all support for Office 2016 for Mac on that date. Office 2016, like the Office 2019 which followed it and will still be supported, is a standalone copy of the Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook bundle which was sold as a single purchase.

While Office began as a single purchase, Microsoft has been promoting a subscription version called Office 365 since 2011. As part of that promotion, subscribers have received continually updated support plus new features that are exclusive to Office 365.

Similarly, Microsoft has tied new versions of Office such as Microsoft Office for iPad, to the 365 subscription service. To use the iPad versions of the app, you have to subscribe to Office 365.

"We won't take any active measures to block other versions of the Office client, such as Office 2013, from connecting to Office 365 services," says Microsoft in a support statement, "but these older clients may encounter performance or reliability issues over time."

Companies who have bought Office 2016 for Mac will notice the lack of support first, as it affects how Word and the other apps can save and share data.
«1

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 25
    The Microsoft walled garden gets bigger. Libre Office looks much more appealing. I was thinking of upgrading but now I'm not going to do so until I get a new Mac and even then MS might be whistling in the wind for my money.
    pulseimagesseanjwatto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 25
    I'm curious why anyone would ever even still need Office anymore? I haven't used it in over 10 years. I've been through multiple jobs and four years of university and have never had a reason. Pages converts almost everything perfectly from office and when in doubt you can always export as a PDF for resumes and the like. Between that and all the collaboration features on google docs and slides I just don't get why anyone would pay for office. 
    jony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 25
    iOS_Guy80iOS_Guy80 Posts: 805member
    I'm curious why anyone would ever even still need Office anymore? I haven't used it in over 10 years. I've been through multiple jobs and four years of university and have never had a reason. Pages converts almost everything perfectly from office and when in doubt you can always export as a PDF for resumes and the like. Between that and all the collaboration features on google docs and slides I just don't get why anyone would pay for office. 
    Same thing could be said about Pages and Keynote.
    gilly33
  • Reply 4 of 25
    F_Kent_DF_Kent_D Posts: 98unconfirmed, member
    iOS_Guy80 said:
    I'm curious why anyone would ever even still need Office anymore? I haven't used it in over 10 years. I've been through multiple jobs and four years of university and have never had a reason. Pages converts almost everything perfectly from office and when in doubt you can always export as a PDF for resumes and the like. Between that and all the collaboration features on google docs and slides I just don't get why anyone would pay for office. 
    Same thing could be said about Pages and Keynote.
    Except that Pages and Keynote are free. What’s the basis behind your statement?
    MacQcRayz2016dysamoriajony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 25
    iOS_Guy80iOS_Guy80 Posts: 805member
    F_Kent_D said:
    iOS_Guy80 said:
    I'm curious why anyone would ever even still need Office anymore? I haven't used it in over 10 years. I've been through multiple jobs and four years of university and have never had a reason. Pages converts almost everything perfectly from office and when in doubt you can always export as a PDF for resumes and the like. Between that and all the collaboration features on google docs and slides I just don't get why anyone would pay for office. 
    Same thing could be said about Pages and Keynote.
    Except that Pages and Keynote are free. What’s the basis behind your statement?
    They are good alternatives to Excel and PowerPoint.
    dysamoriawatto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 25
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    I'm curious why anyone would ever even still need Office anymore? I haven't used it in over 10 years. I've been through multiple jobs and four years of university and have never had a reason. Pages converts almost everything perfectly from office and when in doubt you can always export as a PDF for resumes and the like. Between that and all the collaboration features on google docs and slides I just don't get why anyone would pay for office. 
    Because a whole lot of people have been through the learning curve of the Office apps, have used it for decades, and are not about to start over with a new learning curve for alternatives, of which none are fully cross functional with the Office apps, especially Excel. 

    Microsoft is doubling down on the subscription model and is doing whatever it can to move people to it. 
    edited August 2020 entropysseanjmuthuk_vanalingamdysamoriajony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 25
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,090member
    I'm curious why anyone would ever even still need Office anymore? I haven't used it in over 10 years. I've been through multiple jobs and four years of university and have never had a reason. Pages converts almost everything perfectly from office and when in doubt you can always export as a PDF for resumes and the like. Between that and all the collaboration features on google docs and slides I just don't get why anyone would pay for office. 
    Because the Windows world uses Office.  That's why.  It also represents far more users than MacOS.  Like it or not, Office is the standard in the business sector.  I've made the attempt years ago to use Pages/Numbers and when it comes to fancy Excel formulas/formats, it is NOT 100% compatible, and it was those difference that took me back to Office365.

    My Office365 office installation is paid for by my company.  Each "user" has a 5-PC install limit which covers all my workstations/laptops/etc...  I haven't paid for an Office365 license for myself in ages.  I'm sure many others are in a similar situation.
    entropysfirelockthtseanjmuthuk_vanalingamjony0
  • Reply 8 of 25
    NaiyasNaiyas Posts: 106member
    I'm curious why anyone would ever even still need Office anymore? I haven't used it in over 10 years. I've been through multiple jobs and four years of university and have never had a reason. Pages converts almost everything perfectly from office and when in doubt you can always export as a PDF for resumes and the like. Between that and all the collaboration features on google docs and slides I just don't get why anyone would pay for office. 
    It's all about personal preference. If I didn't have a business that uses Microsoft 365 then I probably wouldn't use Office either as all I would need is a word processor every now and then. As it is, Microsoft's suite of tools is far more compelling for business purposes than many of the other options in my opinion, and I've tried many of them. You just get far more than a spreadsheet, word processor and presentation tool in the overall package.

    From a personal perspective I've always failed to see the benefit of Google's offerings. Slow, requires a persistent connection, and little in the way of privacy guarantees... and for business use M365 isn't really that much more than G-suite. I can't stand Google's email either. It's just not for me. But again, it's my personal opinion.
    chasmmuthuk_vanalingamwatto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 25
    pslicepslice Posts: 149member
    I have Office 2016 and I have tried to learn how to use Numbers and Pages. I realize it’s free, but in trying to learn the two programs I work with it and just get infuriated that the online help does do much with just small things, like copying a formula to, say, 5 cells below. I usually get fed up and go back to Excel or Word. Apple wants to say the programs are easy, but both of those programs leave a lot to be desired. Then we have MS poking us in the eye, abandoning a 4 yr old program. I tried 365 but i am retired and find paying that subscription really expendive snd aggravating. MS is just another money grubbing big company. 
  • Reply 10 of 25
    I know that Apple stores are currently closed due to COVID, but the stores offer free training for these products.  So you may want to look into getting some help on the specific tasks you need to do. 
    chasmwatto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 25
    jimh2jimh2 Posts: 606member
    I dropped office for Pages and Numbers and have never looked back. Office is an unmitigated disaster in terms of user interface design and it keeps getting worse.
    StrangeDayswatto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 25
    sflocal said:
    I'm curious why anyone would ever even still need Office anymore? I haven't used it in over 10 years. I've been through multiple jobs and four years of university and have never had a reason. Pages converts almost everything perfectly from office and when in doubt you can always export as a PDF for resumes and the like. Between that and all the collaboration features on google docs and slides I just don't get why anyone would pay for office. 
    Because the Windows world uses Office.  That's why.  It also represents far more users than MacOS.  Like it or not, Office is the standard in the business sector.  I've made the attempt years ago to use Pages/Numbers and when it comes to fancy Excel formulas/formats, it is NOT 100% compatible, and it was those difference that took me back to Office365.

    My Office365 office installation is paid for by my company.  Each "user" has a 5-PC install limit which covers all my workstations/laptops/etc...  I haven't paid for an Office365 license for myself in ages.  I'm sure many others are in a similar situation.
    Same.  Until I recently downloaded the Office suite using my company's license, I'd been using Office 2004 (?) or thereabout for over a decade.  If I leave this job, I'll dump office until my next employer hooks me up.  For normal personal business I don't need any of it (although as a data guy I greatly prefer Excel to Numbers).
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 13 of 25
    kayesskayess Posts: 42member
    I’m a writer and teacher and have been all my life. I grew up with PC-Write and Tasword before WinWord, and before Apple.  I use Pages and Notes or Scrivener for most things now. Pages is particularly good if graphics are involved.   But for serious longer writing I still use Word and many friends I know are similar.  Formatting large or complex text, there is so much more you can do in Word.  The subscription isn’t a lot if you share with friends, like I do also with Apple Music. My 365 is less than £20 a year. It’s a good deal that can be used on a lot of different devices - both Apple and Android if you have those. And it’s updated now and again.   I wouldn’t go back to paying hundreds for the suite like I used to.  
    edited August 2020
  • Reply 14 of 25
    twokatmewtwokatmew Posts: 48unconfirmed, member
    I used the Office suite for many years and my license through my employer covered my machines at home too. After I retired, I used LibreOffice when the occasional need presented itself. I’ve been gradually moving away from Windows in favor of MacOS, and Office 365 subscription includes one TB of cloud storage. I’m going to let my Dropbox paid subscription lapse, as I don’t need 2TB of storage, and I don’t use its collaboration features. So for me, by going with Office 365, the cloud storage is my main use, but I also appreciate having Excel and Word available when I need them. And ~$65/yr is a savings for me over Dropbox. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 25
    The Microsoft walled garden gets bigger. Libre Office looks much more appealing. I was thinking of upgrading but now I'm not going to do so until I get a new Mac and even then MS might be whistling in the wind for my money.
    It is the opposite of the walled garden. It is shifting people from the outdated desktop productivity suite model that has been in place since the 1970s into a cloud-first productivity suite model that allows you to access and work on your documents no matter where you are or what device or operating system you are using. I remember using desktop productivity software on non-networked, extremely expensive (like you could get a decent used car for the same price) non-GUI MS-DOS machines. This was back when "file transfer" meant passing a floppy disk around the room! Real coach-whip and buggy stuff. Now you can receive an Excel document in a group instant message in Microsoft Teams, upload it to your group's shared site and join a collaborative editing session with 4 or 5 other members of your team using an $80 Motorola Android One smartphone

    Not promoting or defending Microsoft here. Just saying that a cloud-based application where a desktop front end is merely one of many user interfaces to it (Microsoft Office after Microsoft got sick of losing users to Google Docs and dumped Ballmer for Nadella) is miles superior to a desktop application (the original Microsoft Office of Gates) or even a primarily desktop application with only syncing and backup functionality and frequently broken Sharepoint server APIs (Microsoft Office under Ballmer).
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 16 of 25
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,312member
    Microsoft has succeeded in driving all of its non-subscription versions of Office into irrelevancy. I tried to avoid the wave but it's not worth the time and effort for me personally to learn other tools, even if they are better or more cost effective. I've taken some of my more complex spreadsheets from Excel over to Numbers and LibreOffice and proved to myself that I could get the same results from those programs, so yeah it's possible, at least for the things I do with Excel. I actually liked some of the ways Numbers worked better than Excel, but the time that it would take me to be as proficient in Numbers or LibreOffice as I am in Excel is not worth it for me. I'd rather use that slice of grey matter to go deeper with Python or Swift UI and take a hit to the wallet. 

    As far as Word is concerned, I've always hated with a passion, it but it was a required tool for collaboration, especially when working with other folks on open standards documents. In addition to Excel, I've always loved Visio, but it's on the outside of the Microsoft 365 rodeo and requires a separate purchase. PowerPoint is nothing special, used it a lot but if you spend too much time in PowerPoint you should probably find a new job where you can actually get some real work done, where "real work" is defined as pretty much anything that doesn't involve using PowerPoint, or its comparable offerings from other vendors. 

    At least with the Microsoft 365 subscription I get a big hunk of OneDrive storage and can install Excel, et al, on every device I own, Mac, PC, iOS, and iPadOS. My only question to Microsoft is why no support for Microsoft 365 on Linux, especially with all the hoopla around WSL? Very odd.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 25
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,014member
    I don’t really have a problem with this. I converted to 365 through work.  They want to push people into Microsoft 365, so they are just going to stop updating the other one. They aren’t blocking the functionality per se. If they were totally shutting it down, I would have a problem with that.  
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 18 of 25
    djsherlydjsherly Posts: 1,031member
    Just think of it as 1tb of storage for 10 bucks a month. and you get a bunch of apps for free. Cheaper than just the storage on icloud.
    dewmeFileMakerFeller
  • Reply 19 of 25
    Gosh, I read the article and wondered, “which version of office am I using?” Much to my surprise, I’m using 2008! Which I’ve always loved over the later versions...

    while I also use Pages for a lot of my work, it just drives me crazy with some of its idiosyncrasies and missing features....

    I haven’t used numbers enough to know much about it, but I do love Excel and am pretty proficient with it...

    I’d buy a newer version of office for the Mac if one were available, but I suppose sooner or later I’ll need to buy a 365 subscription...


  • Reply 20 of 25
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,267member
    pslice said:
    I have Office 2016 and I have tried to learn how to use Numbers and Pages. I realize it’s free, but in trying to learn the two programs I work with it and just get infuriated that the online help does do much with just small things, like copying a formula to, say, 5 cells below. I usually get fed up and go back to Excel or Word. Apple wants to say the programs are easy, but both of those programs leave a lot to be desired. Then we have MS poking us in the eye, abandoning a 4 yr old program. I tried 365 but i am retired and find paying that subscription really expendive snd aggravating. MS is just another money grubbing big company. 
    Check with your local library to see if they offer access to LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com). Some great, easy-to-follow courses on Pages/Keynote/Numbers (or LibreOffice if you'd prefer). I use Keynote constantly for presentations and *always* get compliments on how much more interesting my presentations are than the regular "PP" speakers. Pages I use a lot (along with other programs) and I find it has every feature I need, and had little trouble with either the "old" version (Pages '08) or the current version (after a short awkward period where not all the features were in place). For mainstream use I find Pages **vastly** superior to Word -- but yes if you need certain more-obscure features, Word probably has them.

    As for Numbers v Excel, I find that most people can't "think different" about them -- they're not meant to be directly compared, because they have different goals. Excel definitely has more features for creating a spreadsheet, but the spreadsheet is the end goal in Excel. Numbers will take that boring spreadsheet and make it beautiful and understandable to non-Excel users. On the rare occasion I need a spreadsheet at all, I use basic functions and formulas in terms of the cells/columns/rows themselves, so Excel is really kind of overkill for me (particularly on a subscription basis). Where Numbers towers over Excel (to me) is that -- as a former graphic designer -- I can use Numbers' sheets and tables to create something visually appealing as opposed to as boring as a Soviet-era farm production report. I feel like a lot more Excel users should do their thing in Excel, and then hand it to someone with taste to throw it into Numbers and make it human-readable. :)
    jony0watto_cobraFileMakerFeller
Sign In or Register to comment.