That may take some serious hustle by less-agile enterprises.

Office 2022's release next year and the October 2023 end of support for both Office 2016 and Office 2019 means customers will have about 24 months to upgrade from those older bundles if the intention is to stick with perpetual.

Don't expect Office 2022 to have more than a seven-year support allowance.

Microsoft cut short Office 2019's support, telling customers even before it shipped that the suite would receive seven years of updates, not the traditional ten (which its predecessor, Office 2016, did receive).

Microsoft will thus almost certainly name the future suite Office 2022.

Perpetual Office has long been on a three-year release cadence, and a second-half of 2021 launch would maintain that tempo.

Some traits can be inferred from past Microsoft practice, however. 'We will share additional details around the official names, pricing and availability of all these products later,' Microsoft said in its Ignite blog post regarding the next Office and other Office-related software. Microsoft yesterday said nothing about the follow-up to Office 2019 other than to define its six-month-wide release window. However, Spataro did not specify a release timetable. Two years ago, when Microsoft launched Office 2019, marketing executive Jared Spataro pledged that a successor would be sold, saying, 'We're committed to another on-premises release in the future.'

The declaration that Office would continue to be sold in perpetual license form was not unexpected.

Microsoft office end of life schedule