Microsoft Dismisses Office 2019 As Old In Videos Promoting Office 365 Subscriptions

Of course Microsoft would rather you pay them regularly for Office, just as you would for any other household utility.

- Mark Hachman

When Microsoft announced the standalone versions of Office last year, known as Office 2019, Microsoft’s attitude seemed decidedly lukewarm (go. pcworld.com/half). We were wrong: Now it’s downright hostile.

Microsoft released three videos (go. pcworld.com/3vid) recently to try and demonstrate that the AI-powered, always updated version of Office 365 trounces the standalone Office 2019 in tasks ranging from automatically filling in geographic data in an Excel spreadsheet to automatically adding relevant skills to a Word resume that can then be sent to a recruiter. In each of the “showdowns,” Office 2019 forces the user to perform the tasks manually, while Office 365 either automatically performs the task or connects to the Internet to simplify it.