General Enquiries
0808 169 1551
General Enquiries
0808 169 15514 years ago
As we are committed to helping your business to make the most out of your IT investment, we thought you should be aware that as of 13th October 2020, only these versions of Office will be supported for connecting to Office 365 (and Microsoft 365) services:
• Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise (previously named Office 365 ProPlus)
• Microsoft 365 Apps for business (previously named Office 365 Business)
• Office 2019, such as Office Professional Plus 2019
• Office 2016, such as Office Standard 2016
What does this mean?
Microsoft have made the decision that as of 13th October 2020, you will be required to have Office 365 ProPlus (now Microsoft 365 apps for enterprise) or Office perpetual in mainstream support to connect to Office 365 services.
How will this impact my business?
If you are using Office 2013 to connect to Office 365 services (commercial services only), you will no longer enjoy all the benefits and security that the service has to offer. You will lose functionality and usability of key services such as Outlook, OneDrive, Word etc, and your business will become susceptible to exploitation by malicious sources such as malware and viruses.
However, Microsoft have not stated that they will block access to Office 2013, but if there are any impacts on functionality following future upgrades to Office 365, Office 2013 will not be supported.
What do I need to do?
To avoid losing functionality and minimise the risks of a malicious attack, you should upgrade to Microsoft 365 Suite. This suite is expected to be ‘evergreen’ and therefore may well be the final version change we see in the world of Office. The apps such as Outlook, OneDrive, Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc, will be connected to the cloud and always up to date. They’re continually getting better with new security features, new telemetry and new management capabilities. Therefore, an investment now will certainly benefit your business in the long term.
You need to consider the following:
• The impact if you do not upgrade as you will lose the functionality and usability of services such as Outlook, OneDrive, Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc.
• What hardware is the software to be used on? Options are either upgrading existing hardware if it will support it or purchasing new with Windows 10 pre-installed. With upgrades, there are further licensing options to consider too which your IT Team or Service Provider can provide more insight on.
• Training is vital. Whilst there are many with an aptitude for all things IT, even the visual changes will be enough to cause unease amongst some employees and businesses.
If you have any questions or wish to discuss how your business can move away from Office 2013 to Microsoft 365 Suite with minimal disruption, please contact us on 0808 169 1551 or enquiries@infinium.co.uk, to speak to a member of the team today.