Goodbye Office 2013, welcome Office 2021

April 11, 2023 will not be just a date like any other, because it will be the last day of Office 2013, a product still widely used in Italy and around the world but which, after ten years of an honorable career, has reached the end of support.

What does this entail, and why is it important as of now to think about the transition to Office 2021? Let's look at this in detail.

What does "EOS" mean?

The acronym stands for "End of Support" and means that April 11 is the last day in which Office 2013 will be supported by the parent company, Microsoft, both for security patches and for issues related to bugs and compatibility.

From the day after, the software will continue to work correctly, without any difference, but if any kind of problem should arise, Microsoft will not offer assistance, inviting the user to update to a newer version.

The more up-to-date versions are Office 2016 and 2019 (mostly no longer on sale), and 2021, the latest one for Windows, while for macOS only 2019 and 2021 are available.

Remember that Microsoft offers complete transparency regarding the end of support dates for its products, publishing the dates as early as the launch of each new product.

How important is EOS to a company?

Can a user or a company continue to use a product after the end of support? The answer is technically yes, especially for products like On Premise, but the consequences are not to be underestimated.

First of all, from the point of view of security, a product that is no longer supported is not suitable for professional use, as there is too much risk involved: remember that, unlike what you see in the movies, a compromised product does not appear as such, but it works just like a non-compromised one, as it’s vital that the user doesn’t become aware of it.

Consequently, there are very strict regulations that absolutely forbid the use of non-secure software, such as software past EOS, such as the GDPR: this means that not only is the company liable to be fined because of this, but the documents created with software past EOS could be challenged in some contexts and considered invalid (because it is not possible to verify their authenticity).

Also from the production point of view, this issue must not be underestimated: a 10-year-old product doesn't have a large part of the functions, novelties and routines required by the normal daily workflow, as we'll see in a moment, and it's not economically sustainable, because it takes too much time to do even the most trivial things. Not to mention that such an old version of Outlook might have issues with the current standards used by email accounts.

The benefits of Office 2021

Obviously, a comparison between Office 2013 and 2021 would not even be appropriate, because 8 years is a long time in the IT world and the changes are not only about Office per se, but also about the operating system and the computer world in general, as well as the internet and workflows, which have changed so much since then.

However, we can point out a number of important functions that are in common use today and that are missing in the old version, in an effort to get users to think about the opportunities they are losing by staying with an outdated software.

• SVG support: support for this format opens up a lot of uses, especially for vector graphics or web graphics, where SVG is widely used. This includes logos, maps, icons, symbols and anything else that doesn't need to be rendered to be included in a document, making the files lightweight without loss of quality.
• Morph: the ability to keep important objects on the screen in the transition between slides is such a beautiful and engaging PowerPoint effect that anyone who has seen it once will feel compelled to use it. To keep users' attention, beyond the content itself, this is a preferred tool.
• Translator: reading and writing in Italian, French, German (but also in many lesser-known languages such as Latvian, Amharic or Nepalese, and 60 others) as if it was English is a function that alone is worth the upgrade.
• Content: in the new versions of Office, there are so many new content elements ready for appropriate use, such as templates, images, clips, icons, stickers, etc., content that can often clarify a concept that otherwise is complicated to explain all by themselves.
• New charts: such as Funnel, Maps and many more, as well as numerous improvements in Pivot Tables. With Office 2021, the representation of a data set becomes much more interesting and clear, with truly useful automations.
• 3D: You can import 3D objects in the most common native formats and use them in real time, which means viewing and changing position in all three axes.
• Immersive Reading: a Word feature that allows for radical changes in the display of the document without changing its actual appearance. In addition to this, the function also offers division of words into syllables and the visual representation of many terms, ideal for students and for those who have to read very long documents.
• Sharing: With Office 2021, you can share documents for real-time editing by multiple users. When sharing, you can select the sharing parameters, permissions and time frame, as well as specify particular users or make the share public. This feature also includes mentions, which allow you to direct a user to a specific part of a document, without having to scroll through it all, adding notes as convenient. Sharing is also important because it allows real-time collaboration between multiple users in different locations.
• UI: The Office 2021 interface is designed specifically for next-generation computers, with icons and details scalable to all sizes, making it easier to see and read commands and icons. In addition to this, dark mode is available in the latest versions, which allows for significant battery saving.
• Ink: in addition to pen or touch support, in the main Office applications it is possible to work with a graphical editor, using various tools such as pens, markers and highlighters. The functionality is vector-based and also allows a replay of all the drawing actions in PowerPoint using a slider.

Considerations

Apart from the EOS, which should not be underestimated, working with outdated software is always a factor that doesn’t work in favor of the productivity of the individual user, which obviously also affects the work of a team. The investment that a company puts forward to keep its software updated always pays off in the short or medium term, while keeping the software secure and compliant with current legislation.

You should insist that customers who still have Office 2013 should upgrade to Office 2021, perhaps at the same time as buying a new PC: this is a must for resellers, and always a bargain for customers.

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