Microsoft's relieve of Office 2019 this week has triggered a small amount of confusion within the user community. Your queries are understandable, given that release marks a key change in how Microsoft makes and sells its office productivity solutions.

If in case this release is confusing to suit your needs, take heart: It's confusing to about everyone, myself included. So I spoke with Microsoft corporate second in command Jared Spataro at the software giant's Ignite 2018 conference. Anf the husband neatly disappeared the confusion.

Office 2019 may be the latest version of Microsoft's standalone Office productivity suite. It's what is the firm now calls the "perpetual" type of Office, or what old-timers like myself might still call "on-premises." And that's for a good purpose: As Spataro laughed and said, Office 2019 doesn't offer most of the cloud-connected features that Office 365 subscribers would see while using exact same apps. Thus, it's always, in fact, a subset of Microsoft Office when compared with the versions of these suite-or, the applications-that Office 365 subscribers see.

It is really an important distinction: Responsible for ever, a primary new release of Microsoft Office provides less functionality in comparison to current users-in this example, Office 365 subscribers-already have access to.

This isn't way Microsoft markets your jewelry, of course. And it's fair to note that Office 2019-e.g. the perpetual version of Microsoft Office-provides more functionality than its predecessor, Office 2016.

For Office 365, Microsoft quietly dropped the year-based version numbers from the Office desktop applications. You can discover this require up Word a treadmill of the other applications: The about box that crops up while it loads will read "Office 365" as opposed to the version number (like "2016" or "2019").

And isn't marketing. At its core, the form of, say, Word that you will launch as providing perpetual customer (Word 2016 or 2019) comes to the version you launch for an Office 365 subscriber. Even so, the Office 365 version of the app includes significantly more features. If in case you're paying attention to this a member of the Microsoft ecosystem, a lot of people do, you know it includes alot more features: Microsoft adds a great deal of new capabilities for their Office 365 apps-across PC and Mac desktops, mobile, web, and on the web services-every single month. You must the Windows 10 update schedule look slow in comparison.

"We've evolved Office 365 to treat how customers work today," Mr. Spataro laughed and said. "They want to use bigger screens on PCs or Macs for creation, additionally, they want to work offline, nicely mobile devices. So we're adapting Office to try advantage of each device type and scenario."

I've long described Office 365 as a thoughtful "no-brainer" for individuals (Office 365 Personal), families (Office 365 Home), and businesses of all sizes and types (Office 365 commercial). At first, this assessment was associated with two major advantages: The 1 TB of OneDrive-based storage that each and every customer receives and liberal access towards the Office desktop applications and mobile/web apps across multiple devices.

But in the past year or two, the rapid addition of new cloud-connected features, several of which taking advantage of Microsoft's unique AI prowess, has tipped the scales. So Office 365 is perfectly still a no-brainer. However now it's for three primary reasons, not two. And due to this rapid release schedule, that includes routine quality updates together with new features, Office 365 customers are also secure as well.

But time for Office 2019 and the confusion that your release has triggered.

Office 2019 provides many of the fixes and non-cloud updates that Microsoft has combined with Office 2016 over the past four years and packages them in a more traditional form. It's geared towards those customers-commercial first, but a version for consumers is nearly here soon, too-that will merely use the product for a passing fancy PC along with "air gap" scenarios the spot where the PC isn't or even never online.

And it's not about addressing a Luddite segment of one's audience. There are certainly customers who want to use Office in situations whereby they'd like to be online but cannot for various reasons. Submarines, perhaps, or oil platforms.

Most surprisingly, Office 2019 isn't eliminate the line, either. As opposed to my suspicions, Microsoft isn't being wishy-washy about whether or not it will release an Office 2022 (or whatever).

"We will be enough another perpetual details reveals Office," Spataro told me. "We will absolutely do more."

And the big change with Office 2019, really, is Microsoft is redefining about the version numbers mean. In case you do see a version number-2019, within this case-then you're looking at a perpetual or on-premises sort of Office that does not make use of the amazing variety of cloud- and AI-based features that Microsoft is adding for Office 365 customers. You're thinking about less, not more.

And this makes certain that Office 365 subscribers have already been using versions of Word also, the other Office desktop applications which happens to be superior possessions way to what's available in Office 2019. You're not acquiring an Office 2019 update on Office 365. You're just intending to continue getting functional and quality updates to Office. Virtually every month.

You are welcome to the new Office.