The 2024 vintage of Microsoft’s famous office suite has arrived, for individuals and businesses. Unlike the Microsoft 365 subscription plan, this version can be purchased for life and used without Internet.
Microsoft confirmed it last March and it is now a done deal: a version of Office 2024 with the purchase of a perpetual license is now available. As we explained to you in detail in this article, this new version of the famous office suite therefore works offline and without a subscription to the Microsoft 365 plan.
It integrates some of the new features introduced over the last three years in Microsoft 365, but ignores the collaborative editing tools and the artificial intelligence functions linked to Copilot. Despite these somewhat arbitrary limitations, Office 2024 remains an interesting choice for businesses needing an office suite operating in an isolated environment, and for individuals who wish to amortize the cost of acquiring the software over the long term.
Office 2024: an LTSC version for businesses
After the publication of a test preview in April, Microsoft announced last week the upcoming availability of the final version of Office 2024 LTSC, for Long Term Servicing Channel. This version, exclusively intended for companies and professional organizations, has therefore been available since 1is October 2024, with a price increasing by 10% compared to the 2021 vintage according to Microsoft.
This version is only accessible through the purchase of volume licenses by professional customers, so you will not find it for sale as is on the Internet. Please note, however, that “used” Office 2024 LTSC licenses will undoubtedly soon be offered by “gray market” resellers. Be careful with these offers, because although they are attractive by their low price (a few euros!), they are most of the time for “single use” and cannot be reused when reinstalling the operating system or purchasing a new computer.
Note also that, as Microsoft insists, Office 2024 LTSC will be fixed in terms of tools and functions, and will only receive security updates after its release. In terms of new features compared to Office 2021, some interesting additions but nothing revolutionary: a modernized graphic theme, some accessibility tools, support for the ODF 1.4 format or even the addition of around ten functions and new dynamic charts in Excel.
Office 2024: a Family version at a constant price for individuals
Good surprise: while the Redmond firm remained relatively vague, during its announcement last week, on the release date of the general public version of Office 2024, it finally showed up on October 1, like the LTSC version. It is now possible to purchase a lifetime license of Office Home 2024 on the official Microsoft website.
Unlike the version for businesses, the public price of the version for individuals remains the same, namely €149 per license. At this price, you are therefore entitled to the installation and use of Office Home 2024 on one PC (WIndows or macOS) at a time. The suite includes the applications Word, Excel, PowerPoint and presumably OneNote (the comparative table page of the different Office offers indicates no, while that of Office Home 2024 says yes).
As with the LTSC version, the Family version is therefore deprived of real-time co-editing and “artificial intelligence” tools, and will, a priori once again, not receive any functional updates after its release. Given all the limitations listed and its very high price, it is difficult to see the benefit of such an expense in a non-professional setting. For studies as well as for home, other solutions exist, just as complete and completely free, such as OnlyOffice, FreeOffice or the well-known LibreOffice.
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