Office 2010 Expiration! Should I consider upgrading?

Newsflash! Today marks an important day in Microsoft product timelines: Office 2010 has reached “End-of-Life.” Will it suddenly stop working? No, as anyone using any of their older Office products could attest (2007, 2003, XP, etc.). Simply put, it means that after 10/13/15, Microsoft no longer supports Office 2010 (and it stopped supporting previous versions long ago). This includes all versions of these products, Professional, Plus, Standard, Home & Business, etc. and all products included therein (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Visio, Publisher, OneNote, etc.).

So what does this mean?

For Office Suites 2010 and older… Microsoft will no longer accept product change and design feature requests or provide security patches or application updates. Bugs won’t get fixed and unknown error messages would be likely to persist. More importantly, it won’t deliver technical support without an hourly or pay-per-incident, “Extended Support” contract in place. And they’re are only available in non-consumer based settings.

What are my options?

With so many advancements in usability, connectivity, integration, security, and overall capability, it doesn’t make much sense to use an outdated and unsupported application to run your business. Today more than ever, your employees need the tools that support this modern age, and if they break, you need to be able to engage the company that provides them to you.

This leaves Microsoft Office users (new and existing) with three options:

Office 2013

Upsides:

• It’s fully supported until 4/10/18.

Downsides:

• It’s not Microsoft’s latest offering, and therefore lacks the newest features and enhancements.
• After April 2018, users will once again be faced with an upgrade decision.

Office 365

In our blog article, “The Office in the Sky!” we provided many reasons why this could be the ideal choice for your organization.

Upsides:

• There’s no support end-date in sight. Because it’s cloud-based, it’s constantly updated and therefore perpetually supported.
• Each subscription includes 5 installations.
• It can be used on tablets and phones alike.
• Each subscription comes with 1TB of cloud storage and 60 minutes of Skype calls per month.

Downsides:

• It comes with a monthly fee that also doesn’t end. Which could end up costing a lot more than the other solutions in the long run.

Office 2016

It’s Microsoft’s latest standalone offering, released just a few weeks ago, on September 22nd.

Upsides:

• There’s just a single one-time fee.
• It comes with many new collaboration, productivity & security improvements over previous versions. For example:
  • PHI Recognition – warnings before sending attachments with protected health information to avoid common mishaps, as well as the ability to stop some users from sending PHI at all.
  • Data Loss Protection – admins can set policies that determine what files can be sent to whom, even preventing data from being copied & pasted outside of Office 2016 applications. Violations can be handled via notifications or be blocked outright.
  • Smart Attachments – Outlook can send links in place of large attachments. These links will also provide enhanced tracking of who accessed what information and when.
  • Encryption, SSO & Authentication – both documents and emails are now encrypted and secured through a single portal.
  • Outlook Improvements – it has gone through a major usability and interface overhaul.
  • Real-time co-editing in Word – team members can collaborate on the same document at the same time.
  • Easier, more powerful Help – a new “Tell me” feature allows you to find answers to common problems, in a natural, plain English way.
  • Bing-powered Insights – Internet integration without having to leave the Office file or switch to a web browser.
  • Addition of “Sway” - a hipper, less linear way to organize and present content in a PowerPoint-like way.
  • “Power Query” in Excel - provides built-in Business Intelligence. To discover, combine and refine data across a wide variety of sources.
  • Smarter Office Menu Options - saving, opening and browsing are now easier, especially the Recent Items view from the Outlook Add Attachment option to include most recently accessed Office files.
  • Addition of “Clutter” folder in Outlook – it analyzes and files low priority messages and emails you’re likely to ignore.

Downsides:

• The license covers only a single installation.
• It doesn’t run natively on mobile devices.
• Users get just 15GB of cloud storage.
• It may not be supported by your computer hardware or older operating system. Be sure to check the system requirements

We hope this information will provide you some clarity and assistance in making the right decision for your business moving forward. Corporate software packages continue to advance with new technologies and their support terms and deadlines change right along with them.

Continue to watch this space for important news and advice in order to keep your operation running smoothly and your users ahead of the game!

For more information, or to schedule a free consultation,

call 813-490-4260 or visit WWW.SHIELDWATCH.COM today!