[ZainRiz]

With Microsoft they tell you years in advance when the product will reach EOL, so you have plenty of time to prepare

On top of that, most of their products are software running on your desktop and will still keep working after EOL

And if you're a government or enterprise with spectacularly big wallets, you can choose to pay Microsoft big $$ to keep shipping you additional security patches

[paulryanrogers]

For how much longer will this be true? Aren't they deprecating Office offline in favor of the online edition?

[ocdtrekkie]

They just released the beta of Office 2024, so no. However, they have drastically shortened the support lifecycle for offline editions which has made it a lot more expensive to use non-subscription Office. Office 2016 was supported for ten years, Office 2021 is supported for five.

With a three year release cycle, you used to be able to skip up to two versions of Office and still get security updates. Now you can't skip any because five years of support is too short to get you to the release six years out.

[Dalewyn]

>And if you're a government or enterprise with spectacularly big wallets

Normal people also get to buy extended support if desired[1], and frankly it's not that expensive if you really need it.

[1]: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/04/03/1757230/microsoft-r...