Office 2019 launches this year, however Office 365 Pro Plus users shouldn’t expect a bunch of brand-new functions.

In fact, Office 365 users have access to features today that won’t be in Office 2019. Here’s Gregg Keizer, writing for Computerworld:

Microsoft will take the variation of Office 2016 now offered to Office 365 ProPlus users– that Office 2016 is various from what’s still offered as a one-time purchase of Office 2016– freeze the code, and call it Office 2019. Not remarkably, though, even at the launch of Office 2019, Office 365 ProPlus will hold the advantage, Microsoft promised.

“Office 2019 will include some, however not all, functions that have been released through Office 365 since September 2015 (when Office 2016 was launched),” the firm said in a support document.

To be clear, anyone who currently utilizes the onetime purchase variation of Office 2016 will notice “new” features if they upgrade to Office 2019. However Office 365 ProPlus users won’t, since they already have the latest functions, including some that won’t make it into Office 2019.

It progressively seems like Office 365 is the “genuine” variation of Office, and the variation available for onetime purchase is mainly an afterthought. I question how much longer Microsoft will even use it.