With effect 13th October 2020, Microsoft will no longer support older versions of Office applications connecting to Office 365 and Microsoft 365 services.
In explaining this decision, Microsoft advised that it would allow them to focus on ongoing investments to their cloud services, that in turn will not take into account older Office clients.
In this blog we’ll explain what this means to affected Office users, namely those running 2010 and 2013 versions.
End of Support for Office 2010 and 2013 connecting to Office 365 Services
Our table below sets out what versions of Office are supported (and until when) for connecting to Office 365 and Microsoft 365 services. With 2010 and 2013, mainstream support ended in 2015 and 2018 respectively, therefore the move to end connectivity support is the next logical step from Microsoft’s perspective.
What does end of support mean?
Current users of Office 2010 and 2013 may encounter reliability and performance issues after 13th October 2020 and most importantly, neither Kick nor you have any control over what issues may occur, when they may happen or how this may impact your business. More broadly though, in our experience, running unsupported version of any application or software should be an immediate concern for any organisation. Here’s some of the main risks when running unsupported:
- Security: Microsoft continually improve their security to fend off malicious threats and attacks. Unsupported applications won’t benefit from these updates, leaving businesses open to hackers and other breaches.
- Emergency Fixes: If you continually miss out on upgrades across your applications then one minor system breakage can cause multiple impacts, leading to the need for costly and complex emergency fixes.
- Lost productivity: Every new version brings improvements and enhancements that deliver productivity gains, running unsupported means you miss out on these gains.
What are my options?
We encourage all our customers to look at end of support announcments as an opportunity to review their applications and continue their journey to become a truly modern, digital workplace. The end of support for using Office 2010 and 2013 with Office 365 services presents a couple of upgrade options to the latest Office versions, including:
Microsoft 365 Apps: the subscription version of Office that comes with many Office 365 (and Microsoft 365) enterprise and business plans. This approach takes advantage of regular updates, sometimes as often as monthly, meaning you’ll always have access to the latest features
Office 2019: a one-time purchase and available for one computer per licence.
So, how can Kick help?
With over 30 years’ experience managing Microsoft updates, we know how to keep your systems safe, secure and supported. Typically, we’d review your environment and Microsoft product suite, identify your outdated applications and recommend/deploy the necessary upgrades that are most suitable for your business.
For more information on how to ensure your Office applications are modern, secure and working to support your business you can speak to a member of our team by giving us a call on 01698 844 600 or by filling out our contact form.