Microsoft wants to count number of users of older Office versions with update – Computer – News

With this update, the company wants to measure how many Windows users are still using the older Microsoft Office 2007, 2010 and 2013 versions.

Why?
What do they want with that information?
Will they still release patches for older versions?
I sense that implication a bit, but I don’t know if that comes from MS itself or is a journalistic interpretation.

To be honest, I don’t know if I want patches for those older Office versions.
On the one hand, I naturally want users to use their purchase for as long as possible. If such an old office version will do (and I think most people would be fine with it) why force them to upgrade?

On the other hand, I think that supporting old software is difficult and keeping a package like Office secure seems quite a challenge to me. Maybe it’s better if we don’t even try. If you start thinking like this, you will soon arrive at a subscription from a la O365 where you pay for it a month and always have the latest version. From a support point of view, there is a lot to be said for this.

But then you run into losing part of your independence. If your account is closed for whatever reason, for example because you have no money for a while, then you can no longer do anything and if your data is in the cloud you can no longer access it.
It is also difficult that the costs for the future are not certain. In principle, such a subscription can quickly become much more expensive. Now it is not likely that they would suddenly double the price, but there is also little pressure to make the price as low as possible.

Once on that train, getting off is difficult. I understand very well that people stick to their old software, even if it is not very useful from a security point of view.