INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Microsoft is giving Office 2016 a reprieve of sorts, saying that the one-time-purchase suite will be allowed to connect to Microsoft's
online services for three more years than ruled earlier.In April 2017, Microsoft proclaimed that applications provided by Office 2016 would
be unable to connect to cloud-based Office 365 services after Oct
The ban on accessing services like Microsoft-hosted Exchange inboxes, OneDrive storage space and Skype for Business' conferencing was part
of sweeping changes to Office's support statutes - all part of a push to get more customers to adopt Office 365 subscriptions.[ Related:
Mastering your Outlook inbox ]The October no-more-access date was derived from the end of Office 2016's mainstream support, the first five
years of the usual decade
All future suites in perpetual license form - those for which customers paid a one-time, upfront fee and then were allowed to run the
software as long as desired - would have the same limitation: If Office 2019 launched in early October of this year, say, it too would be
blocked from connecting to services after its mainstream support expired in October 2023.
